Short Story Collection Quotes

“Fiction has been maligned for centuries as being "false," "untrue," yet good fiction provides more truth about the world, about life, and even about the reader, than can be found in non-fiction.”
― Clark Zlotchew

“When they reached their ship, Ed gazed out at the bay. It was black. The sky was black, but the bay was even blacker. It was a slick, oily blackness that glowed and reflected the moonlight like a black jewel. Ed saw the tiny specks of light around the edges of the bay where he knew ships must be docked, and at different points within the bay where vessels would be anchored. The lights were pale and sickly yellow when compared with the bright blue-white sparkle of the stars overhead, but the stars glinted hard as diamonds, cold as ice. Pg. 26.”
― Clark Zlotchew, Once upon a Decade: Tales of the Fifties

“I’ve been asking you to marry me since we met! What more do you want?”
― Chayada Welljaipet, Eternal Love

“I am looking into a silent world.”
― J.G. Ballard, The Complete Short Stories

“On the morning after the storm the body of a drowned giant was washed ashore on the beach five miles to the north-west of the city.”
― J.G. Ballard, The Complete Short Stories

“Well, nothing ever ends well for crazy people in small towns.,”
― Molly D. Campbell, Characters in Search of a Novel

“When I was seventeen I found a man, or maybe he found me. Away from home for the first time, out of reach of my father’s archaic restrictions and my mother’s culinary insistence, I cut off my hair, dropped my Christian name, wore black and toyed with anorexia, passing incognito among the city workers, just another ant in that vast heap.”
― Nell Grey

“I imagine I should have told it to you before? I love you, Sejal.I wish for you to become my wife.Recently I’ve also opened a shop in North Dakota and thinking that, just maybe, you love me too.”
― Chayada Welljaipet , Eternal Love

“Thank you father, thank you. I know you watched me from above and protected me. I promise I shall serve the Magnarian Confederation with all my body and soul. I shall dedicate myself fully to our confederation, the family that you so loved. And I love it too. I shall protect, love and respect it always. This is my promise and commitment. Thank you”
― Chayada Welljaipet, War Between Two Powerful Nations

“If I could do all of that on February 14th, it would be a personal best for me. Something to share with my crew for the glory and the laughs, or to cheer up the next buddy of mine to get dumped or cheated on.

From "My Worst Valentine's Day.Ever: A Short Story”
― Zack Love, Stories and Scripts: an Anthology

“She added on an explanatory note: 'He has eyes like a pig and his name is Joseph.'

'How shocking! One scarcely knows whether to feel pity or disgust.'

Miss Trent knew no such uncertainty. 'He is a hateful wretch!' she declared.”
― Georgette Heyer, Pistols For Two

“I stood transfixed, the silence ringing in my ears. From the field of wild grasses; cocksfoot, tufted hair, wild oat, tall fescue, reed canary and perennial rye, their subtle shades of green, ochre and pink softly patching and blending in rustling movement, suddenly rose a small flock of starlings that had been feeding quietly unseen among the tall waving stems, the swish of their glossy wings startlingly loud in the stillness of midday. Heat held me captive.”
― Nell Grey

“Oh no, princess. I would never carry out anything which could harm your being. This was just something I was told to say. I'm not sure what is planned, if, you go against their wishes. But, I'm sure you're smart and won't test them.”
― Chayada Welljaipet, The Adventures of Luciana

“You might think the desert dreams of the sea, but I think deserts dream of other deserts, scorched spaces just like themselves. With them, they don’t feel so alien, so bizarre. They don’t have the bother of explaining—the way they would with the sea—how it is they’re all sand and rock and sagebrush and how the only sound is the wind across the earth.”
― Pascha Sotolongo, The Only Sound Is the Wind: Stories

“The payments of revenge can be served with the bluntest kind of tools.

~ The Jackass in The Road”
― Stephen Deck, Land of the Story Tellers: 24 Stories and 7 Poems

“We should follow every supply that runs into the particular lake below, going upstream in terms of we can. When we do not find Drakes’ path, or even an additional, we should come back straight along,look yourself upward an additional way to obtain foods,and then do a similar for the next water for the south.”
― Chayada Welljaipet, Hill's Adventure

“It rises from the funeral pyre of rubble, ash and scorched memories to stare Max in the eyeballs, stand right over him in his lonely bed and whisper a hissing, fire-branding warning in his dreams, ‘Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust…’ over and over again, so close to his face he can feel the heat emanating from the fiery lick of its crispy tongue. Fireman is trying to tell him something he already knows, but Max doesn’t know it yet. Wake up, damn you! It’s staring you in the face…”
― Jonathan Dunne, Dead Ends

“A German was looking through a blown-out window framed by red brick and seemed to be waving something. A block-headed Russian pulled up and shot him through the forehead. The blood ran down over his eye socket and dripped off his high cheekbone and seeped into the pulverized masonry fragments.

~ The Jackass in The Road”
― Stephen Deck, Land of the Story Tellers: 24 Stories and 7 Poems

“It had been just about one hundred years now, since any of the smugglers had gone over the notch. History caught up with them. All of them were dead.

~ Dolly Dagger.”
― Stephen Deck, Land of the Story Tellers: 24 Stories and 7 Poems

“At its core, The story is a simple one. For ages humans gave birth to humans and animals to animals. Then one day a woman in La Crosse, Wisconsin, gave birth to a puppy, a Lab-greyhound mix, to be exact. It weighed a pound, they said, though I don’t suppose that meant much to most of us at the time. It was well known that human newborns weigh around eight pounds, but average folks knew nothing of the birth weight of dogs. Later, after the story had broken and the puppy grew into a twenty-five-pound twelve-week-old, the woman consented to an interview.”
― Pascha Sotolongo, The Only Sound Is the Wind: Stories

“He only moved to his own impulses, leaving his wife a cold, lonely and withered woman. This bothered Clarita for years -- how her father treated her mother with a lack of emotion, of connection. Santos never beat her mother, but he would give her a devastating look that caused her to wilt like a water-starved flower. Clarita recalled how as a little girl, she hid away in her room, beneath blankets surrounded by dirt-caked dolls, distressed that Santos would come in and destroy her with such a look.”
― Luis J. Rodríguez, The Republic of East L.A.

“Something inside Rudy clambered to rise out of him, something alive and astonishing -- he hardly ever felt this way.”
― Luis J. Rodríguez, The Republic of East L.A.

“And so, some think it may be possible to survive their presence if only one can enter into a state in which one is not afraid. Only we are so very afraid of them. How could we not be? They are monsters.”
― Kelly Link, White Cat, Black Dog: Stories

“Now Kito saw it. The mass wasn’t homogenous at all; it was composed of endless cells, each remarkably similar to the mosquitoes of the old world. The mass of mosquitoes reared up, readying to strike the men and consume them whole. The mass lashed finally, but it didn’t go for the men. It was heading toward the other three, maybe for an easy meal.

The mass grew in density, then pinched itself off, part of it continuing toward their dead crewmates, the other part of it remaining inside the room with the men.

“Kito-kun!”

Kito didn’t hear her in his head this time; her voice had been real.

“Maggie?!” Hemmler gasped. “I…I hear you, baby! I hear you!”

The mass. Kito concluded that it was tailoring and changing itself to the specifics of each man’s mind. Kito heard it as Yui, and Hemmler heard Maggie. Was it already inside their heads?

“Kito-kun!”

Kito tried to hear her voice come from inside him, but the Yui in his memories was silent. There was only the voice coming from outside his own head–coming from the mosquito mass.

“Kito-kun!”

“Yes, Maggie! I’m here, baby! I’m here!” Hemmler shouted, a maniacal smile smeared across his face.

The mass began taking shape, molding into something coherent. It grew limbs, a head, fingers and toes. It grew skin and body hair. Its formless face became eyes and nose and forehead and smile.

Yui looked upon Kito Tanaka with giddy delight–a perfect reproduction down to the slight slant at the corner of her mouth.

“It’s me, Kito-kun…” Yui breathed.

Her naked body seemed like the only real thing in all the universe.”
― E.S. Fein, Ascendescenscion

“I'm not a "writer." I'm just a guy who writes — when he feels like it.”
― A.R. Gregory

“She gazed over her oxygen mask at the small, smiling Christmas tree that sat on the table behind her.  Tonight, the whirling sound of the disk in the drive was a song that was sweeter than any lullaby.”
― Circa24, Thomas Hardy was an Optimist: A Collection of Short Stories From the Plague Years.

“When you reach our age, everyone wants to keep you alive with granola.  Consider this breakfast an act of liberation.  I got greasy egg sandwiches, bacon, and hash browns.”
― Circa24, Thomas Hardy was an Optimist: A Collection of Short Stories From the Plague Years.

“When we entered the apartment, none of us had to ask about the food basket.  From the look on Dad's face, we had received a ham.  We always prayed for a turkey.  It put him in a better mood.”
― Circa24, Thomas Hardy was an Optimist: A Collection of Short Stories From the Plague Years.

“Un huruit de roţi, traversând holul în viteză, l-a întrerupt pe bătrân, care şi-a îndreptat capul îndesat spre zgomot. Ultimele cuvinte i-au îngheţat pe buze. În prag şi-a făcut apariţia o fată într-un scaun cu rotile. Părul lung, nins de o albeaţă stranie, i se revărsa pe umeri tulburător, asemenea unui voal de mireasă. Nu era nici mai frumoasă, nici mai urâtă ca femeile care-i scăldaseră aşternuturile. Buzele îi semănau cu nişte valuri care nu aştern la ţărm scoici sidefate, ci pescăruşi morţi. De genele ondulate spânzura un ideal închis între zidurile singurătăţii. Purta o bluză peste silueta osoasă, iar picioarele îi erau înveşmântate cu o fustă până în pământ.”
― Teodora Gheorghe, Întâmplări despre niciodată - 7 povești neobișnuite despre singurătate

“Nu erai un bărbat frumos, nu erai nici măcar viu. Totul îmi părea extrem de familiar în vechea sală de cinema, de parcă mă născusem din praful aşternut pe podea. Numai tu nu-mi erai cunoscut, dar te priveam cu acel nesaţ cu care sorbi o limonadă într-o după-amiază de vară. Nu ştiu ce anume îmi atrăsese atenţia la persoana ta aproape solubilă. Dacă stau bine să mă gândesc, nu aveai nici ochi, nici nas, nici măcar haine. Erai gol. Ştiam însă cu certitudine ceva despre tine: erai singur, mai singur ca niciodată. Şi te temeai de lumini puternice.”
― Teodora Gheorghe, Întâmplări despre niciodată - 7 povești neobișnuite despre singurătate