Narrative Observer Mugs

"Here comes fury without purpose."

"Too bad about old Ainsworth. Published and published, but perished all the same."

"It's a heck of a tale...and well told, but we don't publish resumes."

News: Deaths! Deaths! Deaths!

"Max! Oh, my God! There's like a billion moving ideas in there!"

It was my story. A murder mystery. A who-done-it-and-got-away-with-it-until-he-wrote-about-it.

Grimm's Reality Tales.

"Oh, Frank, look! He's sending his first tweet!"

Man commiting suicide finds the treasure at the bottom of the sea.

'Like it? I LOVED it! The narrative gripped me from the first sentence and didn't let go until the final, heart-stopping page! And the CHARACTERS! Without question, Harris, this is the finest year-end financial report you've ever written!'

The Three Kinds of People

"I'm after the history section."

'Mummy, the review of this book was more interesting.'

Man writing at laptop says: 'It's a UK road movie ??" to give it more scale, I'm making the characters three inches tall.'

"I think you'll like this idea-it's sort of 'dull' meets 'inoffensive.' "

My Aunt's Left Hook Expels Uriah From The Chaise

"It's a narrative I didn't intend."

The Truth

"I'm telling you! They don't know anything! No one is in charge!"

So you'd like to be a lawyer...we require honest, genuine people, who are prepared to...learn how to fake sincerity.

"It's a coming-of-middle-age story."

"And Jasper, dear Jasper, with his soulful eyes and great sagging jowl, would be stretched upon the floor, his tail a-thump when he heard his master's footsteps." Penny loved Daphne Du Maurier's 'Rebecca'.

"That's Eleanor. She's a fact checker."

Toni Morrison

"Running is great. Unless you compare it with not running."

History Department: 'I used to be a revisionist myself, you know!'

"No, no, your job's not going out of the country to some foreign bastard. We're just firing you."

Bat

"Tell us again — a little less graphic."

'Can't talk now, I'm just going into a tunnel.'

'I hate these cliche situations!'

“I’ve got an idea for a story: Gus and Ethel live on Long Island, on the North Shore. He works sixteen hours a day writing fiction. Ethel never goes out, never does anything except fix Gus sandwiches and in the end she becomes a nympho-lesbo-killer-whore. Here’s your sandwich”

"What do you suppose Ken Burns will have to say about all this in 30 years?"

Ilyasah Shabazz

Reading room