“Somewhere in the dark years between Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Poland and the turn of the Second World War’s tide, Wystan Hugh Auden returned to his childhood faith.” Ross Douthat, Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics.

“It was not that he didn’t remember he once had another sort of life.” Gao Xingjian, One Man’s Bible (translated by Mabel Lee.)

“My strongest memory is not a memory.” Tara Westover, Educated.

 “The explosion took place two minutes after Elishva, the old woman known as UMM Daniel, or Daniel’s mother, boarded the bus.” Ahmed Saadawi, Frankenstein in Baghdad.

 “Despite being the official retreat of American presidents, Camp David is a curiously bare and rustic facility.” Michael J. Mazarr, Leap of Faith: Hubris, Negligence, and America’s Greatest Foreign Policy Tragedy.

“The nights are so pleasant in Caulfield.” Cornell Woolrich, I Married a Dead Man.

“Tuesday, September 16, 2008, was the ‘day after Lehman.’” Adam Tooze, Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World.

“Her journey from Alton to Springfield should have taken no longer than two days, but as the stage driver himself said, ‘That’s no more ‘n a hope.’” Louis Bayard, Courting Mr. Lincoln.

 “In 1926, there were countless ways to die in an airplane.” Keith O’Brien, Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History.

 “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” Daphne Du Maurier, Rebecca.

“I think of the old football press boxes first, the ones where you’d look up from scribbling in your notebook and find a guy in the crowd staring at you through the window, probably wondering if it was your story that made him choke on his cornflakes the other morning.” John Schulian, Football: Great Writing About the National Sport.

“Word came today: four lines squeezed on a three-by-five.” Richard Powers, The Gold Bug Variations.

“When I left my boxed township of Illinois farmland to attend my dad’s alma mater in the lurid jutting Berkshires of western Massachusetts, I all of a sudden developed a jones for mathematics.” David Foster Wallace, “Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley,” in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments.