Black Swan Green

Speaking well is the same as commanding.

“Money’s never a problem, not if you’ve got half a brain.” “No?” “Money? Course not. Identify a demand, handle its supply, make your customers grateful, kill off the opposition.”

“This ‘Not Today’ attitude of yours is a cancer. Cancer of the character. It stunts your growth. Other kids sense your Not-Todayness, and despise you for it. ‘Not Today’ is why those plebs in the Black Swan make you nervous. ‘Not-Today’—I would bet—is at the root of that speech defect of yours.” (A shame bomb blew my head off.) “ ‘Not Today’ condem

“Damn. I’ll post you this collection of essays, Inside the Whale.” “Thanks.” I fluked an 8, a 9, a 10, and acted like it was nothing special.

(Eavesdropping’s sort of thrilling ’cause you learn what people really think, but eavesdropping makes you miserable for exactly the same reason.)

Wish it had been toad for dinner, not tinned carrots, baked beans, and Heinz meatballs in gravy. A plate of browny orange. Mum can cook real food, when relatives visit, say. She’s on a work-to-rule till she gets her rockery, I reckon. Dad said it was “utterly delicious.” His sarcasm didn’t bother with camouflage. Neither did Mum’s. “I am glad you t

“Good. I reply, verse is ‘made.’ But the word ‘make’ is unsufficient for a true poem. ‘Create’ is unsufficient. All words are insufficient. Because of this. The poem exists before it is written.” That, I didn’t get. “Where?” “T. S. Eliot expresses it so—the poem is a raid on the inarticulate. I, Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, agree with him. Poems

Photos’re better than nothing, but things’re better than photos ’cause the things themselves were part of what was there.

“So. Translate the first chapter of Alain-Fournier from French to English, or do not return next Saturday. The author needs no parochial schoolchildren to disfigure his truth, but I need you to proof you do not waste my time. Go.