Around current times, I took on a challenging activity — but a pleasant 1. I reviewed all the passages of prose featured in the For the Appreciate of Sentences portion of my Instances Impression e-newsletter in 2023 and tried out to decide the ideal of the ideal. And there’s no undertaking that, at least not objectively, not when the harvest is so bountiful.
What follows is a sample of the sentences that, on fresh new evaluation, designed me smile the widest or nod the most difficult or desire the most ardently and enviously that I’d written them. I hope they give you as substantially satisfaction as they gave me when I reread them.
I also hope that these of you who routinely lead to For the Like of Sentences, bringing gems like the kinds underneath to my attention, know how grateful to you I am. This is a crowdsourced business. You are the smart and deeply appreciated crowd.
Lastly, I hope 2024 provides all of us lots of good matters, which includes several wonderful sentences.
Let us begin with The Periods. Dwight Garner mentioned how a particular conservative cable community presses on with its distortions, despite getting called out on