Good Phrases

A sample of my collection of phrases I like

Whenever I hear or read a phrase I like, I add it to my list. Usually it’s something funny, but sometimes it’s pretty, evocative, strange, or otherwise noteworthy. I don’t track the source because it’s in my head, except for the things my son says because I want to remember everything he says and does. I like it decontextualized, it has a mysterious tone. Most of them turn up if you Google them, though. Twitter, articles online, song lyrics, Pynchon, Nabokov, conversations I overheard, and things my friends and family have said or written online. I did annotate some of them, because I thought they were interesting.

• Cyberloafing
• Anguished rictus
• Nail-a-dumper hotline
• [metallic scraping] as in axe dragged through quarry
• There is always plenty of water
• There’s more screaming than you’d think
• We were like those who dream
• I keep myself nice
• Old growth suburbs
• Taking turns strangling a mermaid
• Inexplicable interest in selling art to G-men
• It is related in the assemblies of the wise
• Heaven waits
• Kmart amen break
• No storms in kinderland (son, bath time, Nov 2025, would not elaborate)
• Babies are born worshipping unknown gods
• Sinister hippie mischief
• I’m shoreless
• Traffical jam (Son, Feb 2026)
• Strange as angels
• Corpulent beyond all reckoning
• Brittle crystal
• Water spirals the wrong way down the sink
• The mayor’s wife’s exposed navel
• Scoopie token hustle (occasionally you hit gold on Discord)
• She was no longer identical to herself
• My gal pal Kitty (retiree regular at my local coffee shop referred to an old flame this way. At least, I think an old flame, I was eavesdropping)