Some zingers from THE NETWORK

A few bits from my novel THE NETWORK (ISBN 978-0-9556740-1-3}

“My family’s a battlefield, and I’m just a small hill which each side occupies to fire on the other.”

“You haven’t seen my bad side. At full moon, I don’t recycle newspapers.”

A teenager’s prayer: “Dear God, I don’t believe in you and I am not a very nice person, but I would like you to give my friends a safe flight home and make sure their dad’s OK.”

A teenager’s cricket prayer: “Please make my next ball work. I’ll sacrifice the rest of my career. I’ll work for sick children, I’ll wash the feet of beggars. And I’ll rescue endangered species. I want a throat ball. Just one.”

A school motto: “Act for others, think for yourself.”

The school’s philosophy: “We want you to be happy at this school, and if you’re not happy you will be savagely punished to within an inch of your life.”

A bad person: “He’s an arsehole. In fact, he’s an arsehole of international class. They had an international scientific convention a while back to set the standard arsehole, as you have a standard second. Well, he led the British delegation and when he started speaking everyone said ‘Problem solved. That is the standard arsehole.’ Every other arsehole in the world, in the universe, is calibrated against him.”

“Why bother to con the umpire when you’ve already bought him?”

“That was the worst shot in the history of the universe. I gave it nought. I’d have given you one if you’d fainted.”

“Our turn on the flume. Two spaces side by side. Holding my hand. Speeding, bouncing, still holding my hand. Giant splash landing, still holding my hand. In some countries, I think that counts as marriage.”

“Stendhal said that a son is a debtor given to us by nature. A stepson is a debtor given to us by love.”

“No one’s allowed to be a writer in London until they’ve met Elena.”

“You don’t get to the top of the laundry business by letting people wash over you.”

A plea for literature: “Your Imperial and Royal Highness. Your Grace. Your Excellencies. Minister. My Lords. Members of Her Majesty’s Privy Council. Ladies and gentlemen of all ages. I will not detain you long, but I propose on this occasion to feel compelled to say a few auspicious words. I must first auspiciously thank his Grace for these wonderful auspices, here in Omnium House, so rich in its literary heritage.

“Generous support from patrons and other donors, combined with rigorous administration, has enabled the Literary Benevolent Fund to assist more needy writers than ever before. But then, there are more needy writers than ever before. Now that the government has finished bailing out Britain’s banks (we hope), may I ask the minister to consider a bail-out for Britain’s authors? It would be more popular. Britain’s authors have their faults, but none of them has sentenced a small business to death or repossessed a family home. However, in fairness, I must say that Britain’s banks in recent years have produced far more original fiction than Britain’s novelists.”

21. August 2011 by rkh
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