Sentences I would never have expected to read

In my own thread I suggested that there should be a topic on “sentences I could never have expected to read”, and @Alexandra_book_life and @pgmcc were unwise enough to encourage me. So here it is. This topic is for you to suggest sentences that have actually occurred in your reading (no made-up sentences please, and please also supply the source) that are weird, strange or incongruous for some reason. I quoted a sentence from a book by Robin Ince in which the words “llama pancreas” and “cake” appeared. That’s the sort of sentence we want.

So what have you got for us?

From "Around the World in 80 Days."
The steamer rolled but little, the ladies, in fresh toilets, reappeared on deck, and the singing and dancing were resumed.

>2 TorMented: Ah - in the same vein as "On entering the drawing-room she found the whole party at loo, and was immediately invited to join them; but suspecting them to be playing high she declined it."

Jane Austen, Pride & Prejudice.

>3 Maddz: If they were playing high, she should have taken them for all they had.

"It would be a bloody funny death, being drowned in a watermill."

From Checkmate, by Dorothy Dunnett. Part V, Chapter 7.

"Here once again the work was given to a local family, the Bastards. ... ... under whom one of the younger Bastards studied in London."

From National Trust book of English Architecture by J. M. Richards, ch. 10: Town Building: Terrace, Square and Crescent, p. 128.

>6 hfglen: LOL, Those damned Bastards get all the work.

Yes, one could go on: "Oh, Grandfather Wheel!" "Oh, Cousin Compass!" "Oh, Friend Binomial Theorem!"

Earth Abides, by George R. Stewart

"Not many bulls goring people indoors," said Galen.

Paladin's Hope by T. Kingfisher, chapter 1.

I love Galen.

All those books have some amazing sentences.

>11 reconditereader: Yes, yes, yes to both :)

"The Devil's Dictionary" by Ambrose Bierce has many sentences that don't end the way you thought they would. Here's his definition of happiness:
HAPPINESS, n. An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.

>13 TorMented: Ha!

>13 TorMented: 😆

... "watching two supposed adults fighting over who is married to a motorway can't help but make you feel a little depressed to be single."

Love Will Tear Us Apart, page 153.

>16 Alexandra_book_life: Haha!

"The secret of a happy marriage ... is still a secret."
-- Henny Youngman

>18 TorMented: Nice :)))

"Dinosaur sex, she thought. That is a hell of a place to draw the line."

Chilling Effect, Chapter 10.

The book isn't amazing, though ;)

"Everyone should have an ostrich."

Niccolo Rising, chapter 33.

I need to think about this! :)))

"It's not a ship. It's a nervous wreck, laddie."

The Spring of the Ram, chapter 17.

Sailing from the Mediterranean to Trebizond in the 1460's is not a walk in the park :D

>22 Alexandra_book_life: Must ... not ... make ... joke ... about ... stepping ... stones ...

>23 haydninvienna: 🤣🤣🤣

"That makes comb jellies the proud owners of the world’s oldest asshole."

From The World’s Oldest Anus Has an Unexplained Glow in Florida.

>25 haydninvienna: So one could say to an enemy, "You comb jelly!"

>26 MrsLee: 😆

Race of Scorpions, chapter 21:

"When about to wring Tobie's neck, Nicholas always had to remember what a good doctor he was."

I agree, you should keep your doctors happy.

Unicorn Hunt, chapter 23:

'Why fight with swords,' Nicholas explained, 'when you can do it with flowers?'

(They do find a very sneaky way of fighting with flowers, in case you were wondering.)

Unicorn Hunt, chapter 33:

The frog looked, in a bad light, like Sigismund, Duke of the Tyrol.

😆

>30 Alexandra_book_life: I've met people who look like that. Surely we all have. :-D

Yes. I'm always saying, hey, that guy looks like Sigismund, Duke of the Tyrol.

>31 hfglen: Haven't we all, haven't we all :D

>32 MrAndrew: I should be saying this more often, I think :)))

To Lie with Lions, chapter 2:

"Bestow a little thought on what must be arranged for these plays? ... Sodom and Gomorrah one could run for a month, except that more wish to take part than to watch."

😆

I started reading Hemlock and Silver. Here is the first sentence:

"I had just taken poison when the king arrived to inform me that he had murdered his wife."

>36 Alexandra_book_life: Ooooh! I think I'm waiting for this one to go on sale, but I might not last that long.

>37 clamairy: It's tempting, right? :)

Hemlock & Silver, chapter 19:

"Potatoes don't make gods."

Thank you, now I know!

SF: Authors' Choice From the Theodore Cogswell short story Consumer's Report

"Just as the letter carrier's tank clanked away, he got his cousin Alf to man the front door turret and went zigzagging down the communication trench that led to the street."

A side note on this sentence. Way back when my brother and I were kids my brother was having trouble with reading and comprehension. Mom took me aside and told me to rummage through my science fiction short story collections for stories I thought would hold my brother's attention and help him improve his reading and vocabulary.

I picked this short story and I still have the original book. All through the story my brother underlined words that caught his attention and Mom took these words and many others and pasted them up on the bathroom mirror for him to recite and understand in order to improve his vocabulary and reading - it worked. As for the short story, it really caught his attention and, to this day, my brother can still recite the sentence before this one, this one, and the sentence after.

>40 alco261: What an awesome success story.

Shadow Ticket, chapter 7:

Being Wisconsin torpedoes, they go about their daily mischief with the innocent demeanor of farm kids just arrived in town, causing strangers they may have business with to confuse stolid with harmless, often with dismaying results.

I've never thought I'd see these three things in one sentence - Wisconsin, torpedoes, and farm kids - yet here I am... :)

>42 Alexandra_book_life: Noticing that the book is by Thomas Pynchon, the sentence makes slightly more sense.

>43 haydninvienna: Probably 😉

Shadow Ticket is giving me a lot of sentences 😆

Chapter 13:

Cheese, oh to be sure, cheese is alive. Self-aware, actually, maybe not exactly the way we are, but still more than some clever simulation.

>45 Alexandra_book_life: I thought it was only the Pub cheese that was self-aware — has Pynchon ever been in here?

>46 haydninvienna: He must have sneaked in! Where would the idea have come from otherwise?

Sconnie is full of surprises.

>45 Alexandra_book_life:
You’re making me think of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

>49 pgmcc: I probably need to read it then 😁

My Brother's Keeper, chapter 12:

At least he's a Catholic werewolf.

Well, that's comforting...

>51 Alexandra_book_life:
LOL

Whiskeyjack, chapter 16:

"May the Emperor defend me from intelligent and sensible women!"

I don't think there is any defense against them, actually...

>53 Alexandra_book_life: Ha!

No, there isn't!

“Without tea I am merely unreconstituted dust.”
Bookish, by Matthew Sweet.

>54 terriks: 💪💪💪

>55 haydninvienna: 😆😆😆

It makes sense to me, though 😉

>53 Alexandra_book_life: Of course there isn’t. And the world’s a better place for it.

>58 haydninvienna: I agree 😊

I am still making my way through Olympos.

Chapter 57:

"There's a forcefield here, son of Peleus."

😁

>55 haydninvienna: Love this! 🥰

"So God sits on the edge of Her bed and weeps at night, because the only thing everyone can agree upon is that they're all in Hell." (Sum, by David Eagleman.)

(This little book is a collection of 40 very brief stories about alternative afterlives. In the quoted one, God (who is female, obvs) has decided that everyone goes to heaven.)

>62 haydninvienna: Oh, it was a good one!

Replaceable You by Mary Roach, chapter 12:

It's the inflatable colon, our polestar.

>64 Alexandra_book_life: Oh my! 😁

>65 clamairy: Eeexaaactly 😁