The Road / Cormac McCarthy

Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that.
You forget some things, don't you?
Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.
Cormac McCarthy, The Road
"To live a creative life we must lose our fear of being wrong." Joseph Chilton Pearce

"If you press me to tell why I loved him, I feel that this cannot be expressed,
except by answering: Because it was he, because it was I."
Michel de Montaigne, "Of Friendship"

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

First Sentences

Ms. Hawkins at Ragdale always started the day with a list. Make a list of all the teachers you've had. Of all the childhood memories you have. Of people you are jealous of. And this is my list of first sentences I liked from The Best American Short Stories 2005:

"The girls were searching Arleen's room and had just come upon her journal." --Joy Williams' "The Girls"
I keep a journal, and I felt that Arleen and I have so much in common. And the girls. Why are they so desperate to read someone else's documented life? They must be friends with Arleen if they're in her room.

"He did not have friends." --Alix Ohlin's "Simple Exercises for the Beginning Student"
I did not cheat and read the second sentence this time so I have not the faintest idea why he doesn't have friends. I imagine a boy and I imagine a grown-up man. Probably a friendless grown-up man.

"They caught him after he had killed the second man." --Edward P. Jones' "Old Boys, Old Girls"
"They" are probably the police. "He" is probably some criminal. I wonder who the second man is.


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