The Lexicographer's Rules

Since 1980 the US Navy has experienced a mass-casualty incident—10 or more deaths—about every 22 months.

;I have for nearly two years lived in a circle that even the genius Dante could not have created for the most guilty of souls of his inferno. (Source Link)

“I hope that I misunderstood you,” she said contemptuously, “because otherwise I’d run even from your shadow. I’m an attractive woman, and you’re one of my many admirers. I showed you my favour in that, whereas I turned away gifts from other people, I accepted the most trivial things from you with gratitude. And in times of need I even asked you for loans. If, in your obsession over money, you took it to mean something else, I’ll forgive you. That’s only human nature. But understand this—money has never yet won a woman’s heart and it never will.” (Source Link)

“Like sugar, tobacco has to go through a series of physical and biochemical phases, such as cutting, sweating, drying, curing, press, and combustion; like sugar it, too, needs the heat of fire to yield its substance, and it gives off a refuse of waste and ash which are its bagasse and settlings. But the operations involving sugar consist of machete strokes, shredding, crushing, boiling, dizzy rotation, and continual filtration and separation, while those having to do with tobacco are all delicate and caressing touches, ëas though each plant were a delicate lady,’ to use José Mart“‘s phrase.” (Source Link)

;After that came the waiting, because of course they had to call my dad, a small-town courtesy before they hauled me down to the police station to arrest me. Waiting was of course horrible, the worst, the fucking worst, except it wasn’t, because then Dad showed up. He looked like a fucking golem constructed out of wrath and moustache, and the aleph on his forehead glowed with an otherworldly malevolence, and all in all, I knew that doom had finally come. At this point, I just gave over to utter catatonia, and entered into a dream-state where Piper Laurie hectored me about Jee-zus and dirty-pillows. Anything was preferable to reality, where, incidentally, I was indeed arrested, printed, and released, with dark promises that we’d be hearing from juvenile court about a date. (Source Link)