Sweetest of all is liberty. This we have chosen and this we pay for. We have embraced the laws of Lykurgus, and they are stern laws. They have schooled us to scorn the life of leisure, which this rich land of ours would bestow upon us if we wished, a...
Hammer does not think he will make it through this next winter. His breath comes short in his chest, and it takes much effort for him to get up and dressed. My body is still creaky and sound, but with every labor of his breath, I think that my heart ...
"What?" "What?" Dylan asked back. "You just said my name." "No I didn't" I sat up, banging my head on the roof. "Who is that?" "Hey, stay down here where the air is good, okay?" Dylan pulled me gently back down. "Hows your head?" "Not good, I think."...
When a feeling hits, keep breathing. Let air flow through your body. Let your heart beat as it always faithfully does. And let the feeling pass through you. Maybe it will be momentary, or maybe it will spend the night. But it will not last forever. I...
Es muy útil, cuando uno es joven, aprender la diferencia entre «literal» y «figurado». Si algo ocurre de forma literal, ocurre realmente; si algo ocurre de forma figurada, es como si estuviese ocurriendo. Si tú estás literalmente volando de al...
In a fight between a shifter and a witch, the shifter would often win—but only if they could keep the witch from speaking, usually by severing the throat or tearing out the tongue. If the witch was powerful enough, and quick enough, physical size d...
Each thing organizes the space around it, rebuffing or sidling up against other things; each thing calls, gestures, beckons to other beings or battles them for our attention; things expose themselves to the sun or retreat among the shadows, shouting ...
In the country whereto I go I shall not see the face of my friend Nor her hair the color of sunburnt grasses; Together we shall not find The land on whose hills bends the new moon In air traversed of birds. What have I thought of love? I have said, "...
Struggling transforms her captor into a Chinese finger trap. She’s suffocating. Sucking in air without relief. Her lungs expand. Contract. Expand. They fill with lies and broken promises. With despair and lost hope. Each inhale is empty. Invisible ...
For the first time, with complete clarity and absolute conviction, I know I love him entirely with all that I have, everything I am, and who I’m going to be. Of course, I’ve told him before, but not like this, not with the fierce swelling of love...
It is easy to forget now, how effervescent and free we all felt that summer. Everything fades: the shimmer of gold over White Cove; the laughter in the night air; the lavender early morning light on the faces of skyscrapers, which had suddenly become...
Thank you,” Simon said. “It’s a joke, Isabelle. He’s the Count. He likes counting. You know. ‘What did the Count eat today, children? One chocolate chip cookie, two chocolate chip cookies, three chocolate chip cookies . . .’” There was ...
A child is asleep. Her private life unwinds inside skin and skull; only as she sheds childhood, first one decade and then another, can she locate the actual, historical stream, see the setting of her dreaming private life—the nation, the city, the ...
If we are looking for insurance against want and oppression, we will find it only in our neighbors' prosperity and goodwill and, beyond that, in the good health of our worldly places, our homelands. If we were sincerely looking for a place of safety,...
I touch her cheek to slow the kiss down, holding her mouth on mine so I can feel every place where our lips touch and every place where they pull away. I savor the air we share in the second afterwards and the slip of her nose across mine. I think of...
That guy with the silver hair, he’s your dad, right?” Amber questioned, surveying the scene. “Yes,” I said, reluctant to say anything but, considering what was happening, figured was the least of my worries. “Ooo la la. He’s, like, totall...
Madre mía, cuántos castillos en el aire hacíamos, escribió Micha más tarde. La situación habría podido seguir así enternamente. Era como para vomitar sin pausa, pero nosotros nos divertíamos a lo grande. Éramos todos tan listos, tan leídos...
Even if we act to erase material poverty, there is another greater task; it is to confront the poverty of satisfaction – purpose and dignity – that afflicts us all. Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and ...
She'd grown up hearing about epic battles between Guardians and demons, of legendary Wardens and their brave fight to keep the nocturnis at bay. To her, it all had the air of fairy tales, history through the lens of the Brothers Grimm. She listened t...
I was living my own future and my brother's lost one as well. I represented him here just as he represented me there, in some unguessable other place. His move from life to death might resemble my stepping into the kitchen - into its soft nowhere qua...
Alexandria,” he began, the name lingering on the morning air as though it did not belong amongst trees, but instead somewhere much safer, much more enclosed. “Christian,” she breathed after her name had remained uncomfortably within his ears fo...
