The carrion birds sat about the topmost corners of the houses with their wings out-stretched in attitudes of exhortation like dark little bishops. – at the scene of one of the various slaughters in Blood Meridian
Ruth Plumly Thompson, the 2nd Royal Historian of Oz, loved adverbs. Why? Her middle name was Plumly.
The small boys came early to the hanging. – With this sentence Ken Follett embarks on ‘The Pillars of the Earth’.
Presenting the most frequently uttered line of dialogue in circa 1929-1934 talkies set in contemporary big cities: ‘Say, what is this?’
Quiet takes back her folded fields. – James Joyce, Finnegans Wake
Ka’pli ka’pali. Drops dripped. – War and Peace
I kind of worshiped her. I did worship her. Mickey Donovan, narrator of Dreaming Baseball, remembers.