That's just stupid, Tory! Quit being so damn stubborn!” “Not a chance! You've got some kind of death wish! We can't even trust our power lately. They're too erratic for a public heist.” Ben thumped the steering wheel in frustration. “Maybe fo...
Emerson said, “Do you love me?” means “Do you see the same truth?” - or at least, "Do you care about the same truth?” The man who agrees with us that some question, little regarded by others, is of great importance can be our friend.... The...
After all, as it says on a needlepoint sampler or throw pillow or the occasional bumper sticker: Good girls go to heaven, but bad girls go everywhere. In high heels. Or mules by Manolo Blahnik, the strappy, tangly kind that give you blisters. And whe...
As I mentioned briefly on the phone, the best thing about the Air Chrysalis is that it's not an imitation of anyone. It has absolutely none of the usual new writer's sense of 'I want to be another so-and-so'. the syle, for sure, is rough,and the writ...
In the Carolinas they say "hill people" are different from "flatlands people," and as a native Kentuckian with more mountain than flatlands blood, I'm inclined to agree. This was one of the theories I'd been nursing all the way from San Francisco. Un...
It was generally agreed that a coffin-size studio on Avenue D was preferable to living in one of the boroughs. Moving from one Brooklyn or Staten Island neighborhood to another was fine, but unless you had children to think about, even the homeless s...
I agree with Proust in this, he says, that books create their own silences in ways that friends rarely do. And the silence that grows palpable when one has finished a canto of Dante, he says, is quite different from the silence that grows palpable wh...
Thomas Wolfe warned in the title of America’s great novel that ‘You Can’t Go Home Again.’ I enjoyed the book but I never agreed with the title. I believe that one can never leave home. I believe that one carries the shadows, the dreams, the f...
The ‘healthy’ sign, for Barthes, is one which draws attention to its own arbitrariness—which does not try to palm itself off as ‘natural’ but which, in the very moment of conveying a meaning, communicates something of its own relative, arti...
People of very different opinions--friends who can discuss politics, religion, and sex with perfect civility--are often reduced to red-faced rage when the topic of conversation is the serial comma or an expression like . People who merely roll their ...
Six-Pack didn't despise George W. Bush to the degree that Ketchum did, but she thought the president was a smirking twerp and a dumbed-down daddy's boy, and she agreed with Ketchum's assessment that Bush would be as worthless as wet crap in even the ...
Up and down," Meera would sigh sometimes as they walked, "then down and up. Then up and down again. I hate these stupid mountains of yours, Prince Bran." "Yesterday you said you loved them." "Oh, I do. My lord father told me about mountains, but I ne...
Once upon a time, my government turned my city into a police state, kidnapped me, and tortured me. When I got free, I decided that the problem wasn’t the system, but who was running it. Bad guys had gotten into places of high office. We needed good...
The Cool Stuff Theory of Literature is as follows: All literature consists of whatever the writer thinks is cool. The reader will like the book to the degree that he agrees with the writer about what's cool. And that works all the way from the extern...
Benjy Benjamin: Look! We've figured it seventeen different ways, and every time we figured it, it was no good, because no matter how we figured it, somebody don't like the way we figured it! So now, there's only one way to figure it. And that is, eve...
Police Chief Aloysius: [to Captain Culpeper] It's no. The answer is no. He won't back any increase in pensions. He won't even talk about it. And there won't be any increase in pensions. And do you know why? Because they got a solid majority of both R...
Christine Collins: He's not my son. Capt. J.J. Jones: Mrs. Collins... Christine Collins: No, I don't know why he's saying that he is, but he's not Walter and there's been a mistake. Capt. J.J. Jones: I thought we agreed to give him time to adjust. Ch...
Bela Lugosi: Karloff? Sidekick? FUCK YOU! Karloff did not deserve to smell my shit! That limey cocksucker can rot in Hell for all I care! Edward D. Wood, Jr.: What happened? Bela Lugosi: How dare that asshole bring up Karloff? You think it takes tale...
Phil: I think people place too much emphasis on their careers. I wish we could all live in the mountains at high altitude. That's where I see myself in five years. How about you? Rita: Oh, I agree. I just like to go with the flow. See where it leads ...
Brody: Is it true that most people get attacked by sharks in three feet of water about ten feet from the beach? Hooper: Yeah. Brody: And that... and that before people started to swim for recreation - I mean before sharks knew what they were missing ...
Christian Szell: The gun had blanks, the knife, a retractable blade. Hardly original, but effective enough. I think you'll agree. I'm told you are a graduate student. Brilliant, yes? You are an historian, and I am part of history. I should have thoug...
