Notes transferred (in Stanley Fish's words)

I think these are the words of Stanley Fish, from his book on how to write sentences (and appreciate the gems).

In college I used to underline sentences that struck me, that made me look up from the page.

[To me] these were a handful of words artfully arranged to stop time, to conjure a place, a person, a situation, in all its specificity and dimension.

From James Joyce's Araby:

The cold air stung us and we played till our bodies glowed.

The sentence is measured, unguarded, direct and at the same time transcendent. It distills a precise mood; radiates with meaning, yet sensibility is discreet. The best sentences orient us, like stars in the sky, like landmarks on a trail.

Only certain sentences breathe and shift about like live matter in a soil.

Not sure who wrote the following:

The urge to convert experience into a group of words that are in grammatical relation to one another, is the most basic, ongoing impulse in my life.

On days when I am troubled, when I am grieved, when I am at a loss for words, the mechanics of formulating sentences, and of stockpiling them in a vault, is the only thing that centers me again.

Contrasting a sentence is the equivalent of taking a Polaroid snapshot: Press the button, wait for something to emerge.