1. Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.

2. ----- -----, the artist, stood, rented glass in hand, and watched as a rowing eight emerged from the brown brick wall of one building, slid across a band of grey-green water, and then eased into the grey concrete. Some people lose their sense of proportion, thought -----, but what would it be like to lose your sense of perspective?

Will Self - Great Apes (Not Me)

3. It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on Earth has ever produced the expression "as pretty as an airport."

Douglas Adams - The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul [Purves/Wyatt]

4. "What are you wearing?" he asked.
She said, "I'm wearing a white shirt with little stars, green and black stars, on it, and black pants, and socks the color of the green stars, and a pair of black sneakers I got for nine dollars.

5. They put the behemoths in the hold along with the rhinos, the hippos and the elephants.

Julian Barnes - The History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters (Purves)

6. Spring had come to New York, the eight-fifteen train from Great Neck had come to the Pennsylvania terminus, and G. Ellery Cobbold, that stout economic royalist, had come to his downtown office, all set to prise another wad of currency out of the common people.

PG Wodehouse - Spring Fever (ursus/Andy C)

7. ------ -----'s jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting V under the more flexible V of his mouth. his nostrils curved back to make another smaller V. His yellow-grey eyes were horizontal.

Dashiell Hammett - The Maltese Falcon (Gyuri)

8. The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of Western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call 'out there'.

Truman Capote - In Cold Blood (ursus)