You’re a little short on self-awareness. People who are always exacting right behaviour from other people tend to be that way.
Don’t forget, and don’t let your reader forget, that the small world in which you have held him for the last hour or two hasn’t ended. Be aware, and make him aware, that tomorrow all of its remaining inhabitants will pick up the broken fragments of their lives, and carry on.
I told myself all that’s wrong with us is misunderstanding. That’s not good, but it’s not the worst. The worst is not having anyone to have a misunderstanding with.
When people run out of probable things to do, they do improbable things.
The man who acts as his own lawyer has a fool for a client.
Have you children, Mr Brandstetter?” He shook his head. “I was one once. Does it help?
The waterwheel was twice a man’s height, wider than a man’s two stretched arms. The timbers, braced and bolted with rusty iron were heavy, hand-hewn, swollen with a century of wet. Moss bearded the paddles, which dripped as they rose. The sounds were good. Wooden stutter like children running down a hall at the end of school. Grudging axle thud like the heartbeat of a strong old man.