Short Story Collection Quotes

“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

“Why must we always ruin what is beautiful with what is true?”
― Jamil Jan Kochai, The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories

“I look up to discover a large, brown owl with three eyes glaring at me, waiting for my demise, I suspect.”
― Victoria Clapton, Winning Collection 2020

“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

“Normally, you don’t think about how many times you do laps. If you do, you start to get a little dizzy, go all Camus about the futility of the situation. Your laces on the right side start to get loose from always turning against them. Normally I switch it up, do a little fancy footwork and skate backward for a bit, but what if that messed up the youth magic? What if I sped up time instead of reversing it and my face melted off like the Nazis when they opened the Ark of the Covenant?”
― Wendy Wimmer, Entry Level

“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

“I told God I wanted to guide people, so he put me behind the wheel.”
― Randolph Randy Camp, Monica A Short Story Collection

“We lift the rocks.”
― Randolph Randy Camp, Monica A Short Story Collection

“If there's no you maybe there's no sun. Maybe you're here to be somebody's sun.”
― Randolph Randy Camp, Monica A Short Story Collection

“Sometimes, what you see is real, how you tell it is not.”
― Randolph Randy Camp, Monica A Short Story Collection

“Sometimes we give and give, and in return we get heartache and butterflies.”
― Randolph Randy Camp, Monica A Short Story Collection

“I'm older now. I know my limitations. When I was a kid I had no limitations.”
― Randolph Randy Camp, Monica A Short Story Collection

“Maybe it was the way she said my name. I don't know what it was. I just knew that I didn't want anybody else.”
― Randolph Randy Camp, Monica A Short Story Collection

“God ain't looking at your shoes, he's looking at your feet.”
― Randolph Randy Camp, Monica A Short Story Collection

“Climbing the corporate ladder has its perks, but staying true to your soul has greater rewards.”
― Randolph Randy Camp, Monica A Short Story Collection

“He looked at LaBrea almost like he knew her already.”
― Randolph Randy Camp, Monica A Short Story Collection

“Sometimes Evelyn got stuck on a word, using it for everything until it started to mean nothing and everything. This week, it was “world.” Everything was the world. The world was everything. It made sense from that vantage point, but the previous week, it had been “wax,” which had the bonus quality of being both a noun and a verb. I waxed her breakfast of wax and then had the wax to give her wax when she really wanted the world. World? Whirled. Whorled. Were Eld. Was she working her way through the dictionary? It was like the language of flowers, a song heard in a different lifetime.”
― Wendy Wimmer, Entry Level

“Most of Johnny's shining lights have gone dim.”
― Randolph Randy Camp, Monica A Short Story Collection

“Agha's one of those OG Pashtuns who'd argue with Allah over the nature of existence.”
― Jamil Jan Kochai, The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories

“Bakthawara had long known that Zarghoona did not possess the soul of a martyr and would be doomed to settle for love on earth.”
― Jamil Jan Kochai

“He planned to pick up his son, Akmal, who, he hoped, might keep him from killing Shakako while he attempted to save her life.”
― Jamil Jan Kochai

“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