Fionnuala’s Reviews > Black Water 2: More Tales of the Fantastic > Status Update

"He could just see Chuck's face, a white oval turned towards the sky. 'Look,' whispered Chuck, and George lifted his eyes to heaven. (There is always a last time for everything.)..."

Arthur C. Clarke, The Nine Billion Names of God

That's the last of the 70 stories in this anthology. I'm finished!

"'Hate,' said Salustro, 'is not an emotion which one wears on one's sleeve. It is a soul. When it enters a man he may live on, he may laugh, work, go about, and there will be no difference to those who are his friends; but his soul has only one colour, his nights have only one dream. For twenty years I have dreamed of only one thing—to kill a man.'
I said nothing. We ate on in silence..."
Ben Hecht, The Shadow

"We went up before anyone else except the altar boys. I got back and knelt down to say a Glory Be. I sucked on the Host like Sister told us to, but it stuck to the roof of my mouth like peanut butter. I had to rub my tongue back and forth to get it loose and swallow it. When I finished getting it unstick I looked up and there was Peter chewing on the Host just like he'd been told not to.."
Brett Balon 'Room of Blood'

"'I don't care whether you go or stay, I'm sure. I wonder what you would give to be as fine a man as Mr Langan.'
All I possess, I swear it! But solely because you admire tall men more than broad views. Mr Langan may be defined geometrically as length without breadth; altitude without position; a line on the landscape, not a point on it.'"

George Bernard Shaw, 'The Miraculous Revenge'

"'I could not think of anything to wish for', he continued. 'Both my health and knowledge were as good as the next man's, and I thought that if I elected to become wiser than my contemporaries I might be a very lonely person for the rest of my days.'
'Yes,' said she thoughtfully, 'I am glad you did not ask to be made wise, unless you could have asked it for both of us.'"
James Stephens, 'Desire'

Most of the Anderson were alike and since nearly all of them were full of the same cordial sayings and the same way of chuckling with forbearance over what they couldn't help, it was hard to to remember which of them were dead and which had been more recently born. Not that they lacked personality but only that together they were like one continuous entity, a long table of a family..."
Elizabeth Spencer, The Finder

"The house was built on the highest point of the town at the very top of the hill not far from the 'Gate of the Winds'. It stood there alone, on a large square. Only a grim oil lamp would provide a glimmer of light over the square on moonless nights, but a few yards below—on the other side of the gate—life would start again with its endless rows of thickly populated dwellings..."
Luigi Pirandello, 'The Haunted House'

"When he really died, God didn't know whether he was really dead. Till then, he always used to rise from the dead, but this time he did not rise. A few weeks before he had had a heart attack. They call it a heart attack, but what attacks what?…does the heart attack the body, or the body the heart? Or does the world attack both? "

Yehuda Amichai, 'The Times my Father Died'

"'Goodbye to the old club,' Mr Arcularis said.
'The bar will miss you, ' said Harry, smiling with friendly irony.
'But let there be no moaning,' said Mr Arcularis.
'What's that quotation from?'
'The Odyssey'...

He led Mr Arcularis up the steep gangplank to the deck, and thence by devious windings to a small cold stateroom with a solitary porthole like the eye of a cyclops.."

Conrad Aiken, 'Mr Arcularis'

"We are both lefthanders. We met at the club...we prepare, effortlessly and only among ourselves, parlour games which we have invented and which comprise several tests of dexterity such as threading a needle with the right hand, sewing, buttoning and unbuttoning..."
Günter Grass, The Lefthanders