Favorite Openings
Call me Ishmael. – Moby Dick by Herman Melville
There was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. – The Dawn Trader by C.S. Lewis
Parker kept a sun in his desk. He fed it gravel and twigs, and once his gum when it lost its flavor. – “Just Before Recess” by James Van Pelt
Favorite Sentences
Sixteen years on the streets and you can learn a lot. But all the wrong things, not the things you want to learn. Sixteen years on the streets and you see a lot. But all the wrong sights, not the sights you want to see. – The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
A writer’s real work is the endless winnowing of sentences – Several Short Sentences About Writing by Verlyn Linkenborg
Favorite Quotes
“Bad writing is almost always a love poem addressed by the self to the self.” – Toby Litt
Favorite Short Stories
“Making Do” by Italo Calvino
“Super-Duper Moongirl and the Amazing Moon Dawdler” by Wulf Moon
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson
“The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allen Poe
“Tuesdays with Molakesh the Destroyer” by Megan Grey
Favorite Books – Fiction
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The Wump World by Bill Peet
Very Far Away from Anywhere Else by Ursula K. Le Guin
Favorite Books – Nonfiction
Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert