Storyblogging Carnival (Quotable Edition)

Welcome to the quotable edition of the storyblogging carnival, here at The Skwib. We’ve got some interesting reading for you, and a number of thought-provoking quotes that pertain to the stories. Though to start, we’d like to pass along a wonderful quote about literature (and the web, though it’s not really about that):

The web, then, or the pattern, a web at once sensuous and logical, an elegant and pregnant texture: that is style, that is the foundation of the art of literature.

–Robert Louis Stevenson

Postmodern Sass jumps into the spirit of the Quotable Edition with this gem of an epigram:

I nearly always write–just as I nearly always breathe.

–John Steinbeck

Chris Dolley at Author Chris Dolley’s Page has wonderful beginning to his book, with Three Fêtes and a Football Match Part One (Joan of Arc and the Peach Hunters), about an ex-pat living in Aquitaine, struggling with French, fires and vagaries of history.

Rating G, 750 words

To err is human; to loaf, Parisian.

–Victor Marie Hugo

Madeleine Begun Kane at Mad Kane’s Humor Blog has a flash non-fiction story for us, with: Tow Guy Blues.

Rating G, 250 words

It’s a waste of energy to be angry with a man who behaves badly, just as it is to be angry with a car that won’t go

— Bertrand Russell

Our first fiction comes from Dave Gudeman at Doc Rampage, and is the beginning of a new short-story serial that may or may not turn out to be a sequel to Ink Magic. Here is: Mist Magic (part one)

Rating G, 400 words

There is nothing more poetic and terrible than the skyscrapers’ battle with the heavens that cover them. Snow, rain, and mist highlight, drench, or conceal the vast towers, but those towers, hostile to mystery and blind to any sort of play, shear off the rain’s tresses and shine their three thousand swords through the soft swan of the fog.

–Federico Garcia Lorca

Donald S. Crankshaw at Back of the Envelope brings us the third installment of The History of the Domini. In this edition, the humans may have forgotten about the Malwer, but the Malwer haven’t forgotten about them. Fortunately, the Amaranthine arrive in time to give warning, if anyone believes them. You can find the whole story here.

Rating PG, 750 words

The stars are dead; the animals will not look:
We are left alone with our day, and the time is short and
History to the defeated
May say Alas but cannot help or pardon.

–W. H. Auden

Cathy Jourdan at Fakes, Frauds and Fools presents the first part of her story, Top Performer. [You’ll need to scroll down a bit to get to the start of this tale about a prison guard and what goes wrong at the pen.]

Rating R, 2900 words

The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.

–Fyodor Dostoyevsky

And a last-minute entry from Andrew Ian Dodge — another 100-word story!

Names are not always what they seem. The common Welsh name BZJXXLLWCP is pronounced Jackson.

–Mark Twain

Thanks to everyone for submitting stories and quotes. If you have a quotation about literature, writing, stories, or something about anything that deals with the nature of creating texts, feel free to pass it on in the comments.