One Great Sentence

“I work like a watchmaker or an old-fashioned silversmith: one eye screwed up, the other fitted with a watchmaker’s magnifying glass, with a fine tweezers between my fingers, with bits of paper … in front of me on my desk on which I have written various words, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, and bits of dismantled sentences, fragments of expressions and descriptions and all kinds of tentative combinations. Every now and again I pick up one of these particles, these molecules of text, carefully with my tweezers, hold it up to the light and examine it carefully, turn it in various directions, lean forward and rub it or polish it, hold it up to the light again, rub it again slightly, then lean forward and fit it into the texture of the cloth I am weaving.”

By Curt Brown• One Great Sentence• February 13, 2019

As journalists, we strive for terse, pithy sentences. Then comes this sprawling description of writing in which the writer becomes a silversmith, watchmaker, weaver and, ultimately, a chemist. Using the word “carefully” twice, Oz takes this … Read more

“There’s a story he’s waiting for, long before he comes across it.”

By Jacqui Banaszynski• One Great Sentence• January 16, 2019

In the original context of “The Overstory,” this sentence applies to a young man — a teenager, actually — who tumbles into the little-known language of coding and programming in the nascent days of computing. The … Read more

“Everyone likes to reminisce, but no one wants to listen, and everyone feels annoyed when someone else tells a story.”

By Jacqui Banaszynski• One Great Sentence• January 1, 2019

There is much to consider in “The Three-Body Problem,” the first in a trilogy by Chinese science fiction novelist Cixin Liu (translated by Ken Liu). Much of it – physics, astronomy, technology – is beyond my … Read more

“We don’t carry that brand, but I think Gimbel’s does.”

By Jacqui Banaszynski• One Great Sentence• November 28, 2018

If this choice for One Great Sentence seems odd, rest assured we’re not going to go all holiday sappy on you. That’s what the Hallmark holiday movie channels are for. Instead, when this line zipped by in my annual … Read more

“…readers want to feel secure in the hands of the author.”

By Jacqui Banaszynski• One Great Sentence• November 21, 2018

This simple statement stands as a truism for all storytellers, regardless of platform or genre. Every writer, filmmaker, photographer, illustrator, podcaster, editor and teacher of same should keep some version of it close at hand. Have it cross-stitched and framed … Read more

“And a lean, silent figure slowly fades into the gathering darkness, aware at last that in this world, with great power there must also come – great responsibility!”

By Jacqui Banaszynski• One Great Sentence• November 14, 2018

That’s how Stan Lee introduced Spider-Man to Marvel Comics readers in 1962. The narrator pronounces these words, which so many of us have heard so many times, in the last panel of Amazing Fantasy #15. They … Read more

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“There’s a story he’s waiting for, long before he comes across it.”

“Everyone likes to reminisce, but no one wants to listen, and everyone feels annoyed when someone else tells a story.”

“We don’t carry that brand, but I think Gimbel’s does.”

“…readers want to feel secure in the hands of the author.”

“And a lean, silent figure slowly fades into the gathering darkness, aware at last that in this world, with great power there must also come – great responsibility!”

“Developing a writer’s voice is almost a process of unlearning, one analogous to children’s painting.”

“How could you have a new country without excellent dreamers?”

“The girl, Fernanda Jacqueline Davila, was 2 years old: brief life, long journey.”

“From the dancing came the dancing.”