1. "Here the narrator bursts into explosion after explosion of thunderous horse-laughter, repeating that nub from time to time through his gaspings and shriekings and suffocatings."
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Mark Twain, How to Tell a Story and Other Essays
2. "I figured in the fuel, the guns, two rifles, the shotgun, the handguns, four grenades. Period. Two quarts of oil. I scratched a nub of pencil"
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Peter Heller, The Dog Stars
3. "So I could write a story about a girl who was a lot like me, her ex-boyfriend, who was a lot like Satan, witha twitchy eyelid and a penis the size of a worn-down nub of an eraser."
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Jennifer Weiner, Certain Girls
4. "This forms the nub of a dilemna that every Everest climber eventually comes up against: in order to succeed you must be exceedingly driven, but if you're too driven you're likely to die."
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Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster
5. "This forms the nub of a dilemma that every Everest climber eventually comes up against: in order to succeed you must be exceedingly driven, but if you’re too driven you’re likely to die."
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Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air
6. "...like my own granddad used to say, if you get down to the nub of it, people don't change. That's not true, Katie thought. Not at all. Everyone changed, all the time. That was what was so hard."
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Megan Abbott, You Will Know Me
7. "once told me this thing about brain chemistry, the nub of it being that when you’re feeling good, you can’t ever imagine feeling bad again. And when you’re feeling bad, it’s impossible to imagine a time when you won’t be circling the drain."
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James Patterson, The 6th Target
8. "Red onions are especially divine. I hold a slice up to the sunlight pouring in through the kitchen window, and it glows like a fine piece of antique glass. Cool watery-white with layers delicately edged with imperial purple...strong, humble, peaceful...with that fiery nub of spring green in the center..."
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Mary Hayes-Grieco, The Kitchen Mystic: Spiritual Lessons Hidden in Everyday Life
9. "But the teller of the comic story does not slur the nub; he shouts it at you—every time. And when he prints it, in England, France, Germany, and Italy, he italicizes it, puts some whooping exclamation-points after it, and sometimes explains it in a parenthesis. All of which is very depressing, and makes one want to renounce joking and lead a better life."
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Mark Twain, How to Tell a Story and Other Essays
10. "Disillusionment takes us to the question: what does it profit a man if he gains this world and loses himself? And disillusionment exposes that while we were supposedly serving the kingdom, we somehow became the king, and when we thought we were following Jesus, we inexplicably made him a servant of our dreams. The only real tragedy is the leader who never allows disillusionment to wear him to a nub and expose the godlessness of his busyness."
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Dan B. Allender, Leading with a Limp: Take Full Advantage of Your Most Powerful Weakness