Ava

“He had only recently learned the word dramaturge and had been looking for opportunities to use it. He had eventually summoned up the courage to try it on Big Lou, but her espresso machine had hissed at a crucial moment and she had not heard him.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The World According To Bertie

“My aunt, who disapproved of gaiety on principle, made a moue of disdain.”
― Daphne du Maurier, The Glass-Blowers

“Modern sentences are short. In Proust, we encounter sentences which appear interminable, meandering on and on in a way which suggests that the author had no desire to bring a satisfying or intriguing line of thought to any form of conclusion, wishing rather to prolong the pleasure, as one might wish if one were an author like Proust, who spent most of his time languishing in bed–he was a chronic hypochondriac–rather than experiencing life–an approach which encouraged him to produce sentences of remarkable length, the longest one being that sentence which, if printed out in standard-size type, would wind round a wine bottle seventeen and a half times, or so we are told by Alain de Boton in his How Proust Can Change Your Life, a book which has surely been read by most of those who have bought it, so light and amusing it is.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The World According To Bertie

“Resignation to unhappiness didn't come naturally—she had to learn it.”
― Zen Cho, The Terracotta Bride