11 December 2014

Beautiful sentences are harder than I thought

So there was that Buzzfeed article, 51 Of The Most Beautiful Sentences In Literature. Some great ones in there, some dull ones. Some odd choices, the T.S. Eliot is lovely, the Yeats, some bits of Shakespeare that are nowhere near the best. But if we allow that, then poetry should overwhelm the entire list. (Poetry bits, that would be fun and easy, file for future use.)

I sat down and tried to come up with my own prose list, and it's surprisingly hard. My quotes file and favorite sentences are clever or deep, not pretty: I seek Truth, not Beauty. But here's a few.

"Her kimono was printed in a design of irises and violets. The skin beneath it was like a dying man's dream of skin."
-Bruce Sterling, Schismatrix Plus

"He slept curled against her back, a dark comma against her pale elegant phrase."
-A.S. Byatt, Possession

"As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once."
-John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

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