Not in many a moon had he glad-handed so many people. […] The President, in fact, behaved noticeably like a candidate for reelection.

Christmas cookies and lemonade I made it safe and sound to my godmother's house in time to frost cookies and dip them in those little sprinkly things...

Each card had a great stain in the middle of its back, produced by the touch of generations of damp and excited thumbs now fleshless in the grave; and the kings and queens wore a decayed expression of feature, as if they were rather an impecunious dethroned race of monarchs hiding in obscure slums than real regal characters.

Grading the twenty-question true-false quiz took only 30 seconds per student.