“Found” American Sentences

Being so gratified by the enthusiastic response to my recent post on the American Sentence (with so many readers trying their own hand at writing one as well as linking that post to their own blogs), I decided to write some more on the subject. Doing research on the net, I discovered the delightful practice of people searching for “found” American sentences buried in a variety of literature such as novels and short stories (thanks to an informative post by Sue Walker on the Negative Capability Press website). So I have attempted mining for some poetic treasure of my own in two classic novels by two of my favorite writers. The following are the results of my literary treasure hunt (with some of the original sentences slightly altered and edited to fit the rules of the American Sentence of 17 syllables being written in a single line as a complete grammatical sentence). First, here are three gorgeous “found” American Sentences written by Ray Bradbury, who I feel may be the most exquisite writer of poetic prose of all time, from his novel Dandelion Wine:

His fingers trembled, bright with blood, like the bits of a strange flag now found
— Ray Bradbury

Birds flickered like skipped stones across the vast inverted pond of heaven
— Ray Bradbury

Bees have a smell, their feet are dusted with spice from a million flowers
— Ray Bradbury

And here are three by Raymond Chandler from his first novel The Big Sleep (the last one might just be my favorite American Sentence ever):

Mid-October is the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain
—Raymond Chandler

His heart was a brief, uncertain murmur, his thoughts were as gray as ashes
—Raymond Chandler

The old man nodded, as if his neck was afraid of the weight of his head
—Raymond Chandler

So what do you think, dear readers? Are you now inspired to start searching for possible American Sentences in your own favorite books?  I sure hope you are, and if you find any good ones, that you will share your bounty with us all!