What maniacs we are—sick with love, all of us.

    — Megan Mayhew Bergman, from “Housewifely Arts,” in Birds of a Lesser Paradise

Then he went over and sat down on the unoccupied twin bed, looked at the girl, aimed the pistol, and fired a bullet through his right temple.

    — J. D. Salinger, from A Perfect Day For A Bananafish (thanks, skippingthesurface)

[After a few steps he fell; inside, he was begging for help, but no words were audible.] He fell to the ground with a thud, and lay there, collapsed like a pile of rocks.

    — Juan Rulfo, from Pedro Páramo (thanks, lakeside-mile)

And so I finally arrived, although in a roundabout fashion, back in the kitchen where you first met me.

    — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, The New Melusine (thanks, asimplethinker)

Yes, that’s it, that is what I should have said to her.

    — Haruki Murakami, On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning (thanks, nonesuchunsuitable)

The sea between Edgar and his father began to drain, and in the distance burned the fire of a man waiting to be rescued by a small boy he once knew.

    — Where They Hide Is a Mystery by Simon Van Booy, in The Secret Lives of People in Love (short stories)