One Great Sentence

“NOVEMBER, noun. The eleventh twelfth of a weariness.”

By Kari Howard• One Great Sentence• November 29, 2017

Why is it great? I’ve never read Bierce’s satirical dictionary, but after coming across this sentence, it’s on the list.  With just a few words, he conjures up the dreariness of the month (with something quintessentially dreary: fractions). It’s no … Read more

“Before the aurora borealis appears, the sensitive needles of compasses all over the world are restless for hours, agitating on their pins in airplanes and ships, trembling in desk drawers, in attics, in boxes on shelves.”

By Roy Peter Clark• One Great Sentence• November 15, 2017

Why is it great? I admire the way Dillard turns a piece of natural science into a narrative of anticipation during which no human being makes an entrance.  The aurora borealis, better known as the northern lights, is a spectacular … Read more

“Taught from their infancy that beauty is woman’s sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.”

By Kari Howard• One Great Sentence• November 8, 2017

Why is it great? Take a look at the publication date: 1792. That’s more than two centuries ago, and two things are remarkable about this fact. 1) That Wollstonecraft, the mother of “Frankenstein” author Mary Shelley, was such a terrific … Read more

“Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that’s on its mind and can’t make itself understood, and so can’t rest easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving.”

By Kari Howard• One Great Sentence• October 30, 2017

Why is it great? For Halloween, I decided to use this wonderfully spooky line from Mark Twain (who in his writing and his speaking was a true master of the Great Sentence). Starting with the rhythm of “away out in … Read more

“Along with these tots and second-honeymooners, there were Harvard freshmen, giving off that peculiar nervous glow created when a quantity of insouciance is saturated with insecurity; thick-necked Army officers with brass on their shoulders and lead in their voices; pepperings of priests; perfumed bouquets of Roxbury Fabian fans; shiny salesmen from Albany and Fall River; and those gray, hoarse men—taxi-drivers, slaughterers, and bartenders who will continue to click through the turnstiles long after everyone else has deserted to television and tramporamas.”

By Kari Howard• One Great Sentence• October 25, 2017

Why is it great? Sadly, the Red Sox aren’t in the World Series, but this beautiful line from a classic Updike piece captures the crowd at Fenway like a camera. But it’s a camera that also has the ability to … Read more

“There was a kind of autumnal stain in the air that reminded me of the smell of leather work gloves, a high-school locker room at homecoming, the inside of an ancient canvas tent.”

By Kari Howard• One Great Sentence• October 18, 2017

Why is it great? Chabon has tapped into that greatest of sensory effects: the ability of smells to take you back to a place, a moment, a memory. The last one, in particular, works its magic on me. The mildewy … Read more

“The private estate was far enough away from the explosion so that its bamboos, pines, laurel, and maples were still alive, and the green place invited refugees — partly because they believed that if the Americans came back, they would bomb only buildings;  partly because the foliage seemed a center of coolness and life, and the estate’s exquisitely precise rock gardens, with their quiet pools and arching bridges, were very Japanese, normal, secure;  and also partly (according to some who were there) because of an irresistible, atavistic urge to hide under leaves.”

By Roy Peter Clark• One Great Sentence• October 11, 2017

Why is it great? Great writers fear not the long sentence, and here is proof.  If a short sentence speaks a gospel truth, then a long one takes us on a kind of journey.  This is best undertaken when subject … Read more

“We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it.”

By Kari Howard• One Great Sentence• October 4, 2017

Why is it great? This sentence is one of the most vivid metaphors I’ve ever read. It captures the helplessness of a life of desperation, where you can’t even jump from the window, just stare out of it, seeing the … Read more

“Something in the world links faces and leaves and rivers and woods and wind together and makes them a string of medallions with all our faces on them, worn forever round our necks, kin.”

By Julia Shipley• One Great Sentence• September 27, 2017

Why is it great? Written long before every person carried a camera, before Facebook, back when “streaming” was just what water did as it coursed through its bed, Goyen, raised in a small town in East Texas, believed we could … Read more

“I know all about reporters, Walter. A lot of daffy buttinskis running around without a nickel in their pockets and for what? So a million hired girls and motormen’s wives’ll know what’s going on.”

By Kari Howard• One Great Sentence• September 20, 2017

Why is it great? Yes, it’s three sentences. But it’s one brilliant summation of journalists, from the best-written movie about journalists of all time. God, the banter in the screenplay! I love how this line has hilarious putdowns like “daffy … Read more