We had been hopelessly labouring to plough waste lands; to make nationality grow in a place full of the certainty of God… Among the tribes our creed could be only like the desert grass – a beautiful swift seeming of spring; which, after a day’s...
I couldn't help smiling as he grasped my arms and held me in place because his warmth infected me. I hadn't known I was freezing until he held me. I hadn't known until then, after the long hours of separation, that with Cain I could pretend to be hum...
You will ask me, after this, why, I didn't tell you this before. It is because I know how powerful a story can be. It can change the course of history. It can save a life. But it can also be a sinkhole, a quicksand in which you become stuck, unable t...
Now he understood. After a while, pain simply stopped. It was as though your mind was able to create a firewall beyond which it would not let you venture. You had to have a break from your anguish, or you'd go crazy. It was the psychological equivale...
The key to valuing something is to lose it and then realize how rare it was—after which you pray like mad to regain what you foolishly lost. The value of an item often depends upon how hard it is to attain.
Perfection is a paradigm meant to keep us striving and learning and growing. Like a wondrous sunset, perfection may be beyond our reach, but it is within our view and well worth seeking after.
You learn, finally, that you'll die, and so you try to hang on to your own life, that gentle, naive kid you used to be, but then after a while the sentiment takes over, and the sadness, because you know for a fact that you can't ever bring any of it ...
If you look at it from any other side, it looks like a pile of enormous deer droppings, but Chiron wouldn't let us call the place the Poop Pile, especially after it had been named for Zeus, who doesn't have much of a sense of humor.
How much the pain grew inside him after Ossie died until the only way to deal with it was to throw himself into the fray. And the whole time, Vanessa's body was wrapped around him like she was the only one being strong as a shield while he stripped h...
Romance is about putting things aright after some tragedy has put them asunder. It is about restoration of the right relations among things and going home is where that restoration occurs because that is where it matters most.
No woman will ever take care of my children but me, she said. I will not allow it, do you understand? And after I am gone Madge Toxley, if you try to make them yours, then you will live to regret it.
After mutual respect and understanding are achieved, it is possible to establish real, sincere relationships, which is the foundation of a solid long-term collaboration.
All tha’ effin’ an’ blindin’ she was doin’...I ain’t never seen tha’ likes. Ya’ made a right hames wit dis’ wan, Athair. If she ‘ad been one of us, I’da put fifty quid on ‘er. She was after ya’ bollox, she was!
Strike two. Add dumb as a box of rocks to the list of why I don't like these guys. I got to my feet, deciding to play nice. After all, they were just poor dumb guys who couldn't help it that there weren't enough brains in their genes.
After all, she knows how painful it can be not to follow your heart and she knows about the obstacles and about loyalty and duty and about the countless kinds of love. If only Eve and Myles were freer to make the right choices, she thinks.
...imagine what you are writing about. See it and live it. Do not think it up laboriously, as if you were working out mental arithmetic. Just look at it, touch it, smell it, listen to it, turn yourself into it. When you do this, the words look after ...
What has been done is little—scarcely a beginning; yet it is much in comparison with the total blank of a century past. And our knowledge will, we are easily persuaded, appear in turn the merest ignorance to those who come after us.
...after all, she had birthed us alone, diapered and fed us, helped us with homework, kissed and hugged us, poured her love into us. That she might not actually know us seemed the humblest thing a mother could admit.
And where are you going?" His voice was playfully challenging. "To get some breakfast," she said without stopping. He leered. "I've got something for you to eat," he called after her. "I might bite it off, though," she said over her shoulder.
After all everybody, that is, everybody who writes is interested in living inside themselves in order to tell what is inside themselves. That is why writers have to have two countries, the one where they belong and the one in which they live really. ...
Do…you…have…a…hard…time…finding…Steve’s dick?” she enunciated, enjoying Mary’s extreme discomfort. “He’s big as a fuckin’ house so I imagine it might be a bit of a problem.” The New Jersey accent that was still there after...
