He started the book at two-fifteen on a Saturday afternoon in early December. There were other things he’d rather be doing—watching the Notre Dame game,

Living at Number Sixteen Evelyn Mews, Tilda often thought, was like living in a poem. Number Sixteen was a townhouse of bright whitewashed brick with black shutters and a glossy black roof. 

Papa-yo! So you want to hear this nasty story? In truth, it is a story you own daddy used to beg me to tell him all the time when he was a young boy too. 

It was one of those utterances that sparkled—the very daring! Could you see us? Canoe shrugged, to be expected. After all, Canoe was our local recovering. Truth be told, it was she who left those pamphlets in the clubhouse next to the men’s Nineteenth Hole.

A man went to knock at the king’s door and said, Give me a boat. The king’s house had many other doors, but this was the door for petitions. Since the king spent all his time sitting at the door for favors (favors being offered to the king, you understand)

Context is everything. Dress me up and see. I’m a carnival barker, an auctioneer, a downtown performance artist, a speaker in tongues, a senator drunk on filibuster.

Joy Ray lives on Great Jones Street upstairs from Sticky Mike's Frog Bar, a nightclub in front of which Rocket, drunk and loping towards the subway, was once robbed at gun point. 

Subject is a freak. Subject investigates own reflection: Long hair—check. Funky beard—check. Headband—check. Body odor—check. 

Ryan spent an entire afternoon at the medical school searching for what his inventory sheet described as a “stereotaxic with dog-monkey adapters.” 

On an invisible star high up in the dark sky a canary yellow butterfly spread its wings, revealing a bodice of intricately woven red and purple. Down this butterfly came in a graceful descent to earth.