The first week of August hangs at the very top of the summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a...
My father was a Catholic, a coal miner in the Big Pit. My mother a Jew. A charwoman, when she could find the work. They didn’t fit in Wales. Nor in the U.K., either. They didn’t fit with each other all that well, for that matter. They fought ever...
Under the ground seep the toxins of the population that lives above. If you have to, you will eat roots and earthworms. It is always night. Candles burn in lanterns made from tin cans. When it is nighttime up above, you can crawl out, but only for a ...
I had built such a wall between my experiences and how I felt about those experiences that I was incapable of reliving both simultaneously. I could talk about my traumas, even walk through them, but I couldn’t feel them. When I tried to bring it al...
I am back in my beloved city. The scene of desolation fills my eyes with tears. At every step my distress and agitation increases. I cannot recognize houses or landmarks I once knew well. Of the former inhabitants, there is no trace. Everywhere there...
Beyond the Years I the years the answer lies, Beyond where brood the grieving skies And Night drops tears. Where Faith rod-chastened smiles to rise And doff its fears, And carping Sorrow pines and dies— Beyond the years. II Beyond the years the pra...
To some, the image of a pale body glimmering on a dark night whispers of defeat. What good is a God who does not control his Son's suffering? But another sound can be heard: the shout of a God crying out to human beings, "I LOVE YOU." Love was compre...
I am a librarian. I discovered me in the library. I went to find me in the library. Before I fell in love with libraries, I was just a six-year-old boy. The library fueled all of my curiosities, from dinosaurs to ancient Egypt. When I graduated from ...
Despite the real danger of malaria, a wide swath of people of every age and education level and nationality all around the world imagine mosquito nets to be ‘confining' and 'suffocating;’ most others refuse to use them because they ‘don’t loo...
Seven years, Dawn. Working with the Slayer. Seeing my friends get more and more powerful... a witch. A demon. Hell, I could fit Oz in my shaving kit, but come a full moon, he had a wolfy mojo not to be messed with. Powerful, all of them. And I'm the ...
Two adolescent girls on a hot summer night--hardly the material of great literature, which tends to endow all male experience (that of those twin brothers who found themselves adrift so many years ago in the dark northern woods for instance) with uni...
I had always liked staying the night with other families, having your own room with a freshly made bed, full of unfamiliar objects, with a towel and a washcloth nicely laid out, and from there straight into the heart of family life, despite there alw...
I was asked by a concerned church-goer: "Is your relationship with God okay?" and I answered "My relationship with God is far better than yours. You have to be in a certain place, with a certain group of people, pray at certain days of the week, read...
Endings are abstruse, mystic and unreal. They are but depleted beginnings purposed to be substituted with newer ones.A transition of outlook and time, similar to our differing moods before and after slumber. Before the act we witness an exhaustion, a...
I didn’t want to fall in love. Looking at you gave me chills and kissing you made my knees weak. You made flowers grow and fill the space in my lungs which made it impossible for me to breathe. I’m trying to drench the memories and the blood that...
Patrick: You know that girl we did last week? The one with the potatoes. Stan: That girl? Yeah, that's this guy's girl. Patrick: Yeah. Stan: Right... Was. Took care of that. Patrick: Well uh, I kind of fell in love with her that night. Stan: What? Yo...
Hildy Johnson: I suppose I proposed to you? Walter Burns: Well, you practically did, making goo-goo eyes at me for two years until I broke down. [impersonates Hildy, flutters his eyelashes] Walter Burns: "Oh, Walter." And I still claim I was tight th...
Big Joe: According to this map, we got a river to cross before we get into this town of yours. Kelly: Yeah, well there's a bridge right here, six miles out. Big Joe: There was a bridge. The Air Corps knocked every bridge out of that river months ago....
[first lines] Radio announcer: President Truman'll be here tomorrow, so all you folks in Dallas turn out, chuh hear? This is Cowboy Rhythms on KTRN, Wichita Falls, here's Hank Williams' big hit tune, "Cold Cold Heart". Sam the Lion: You ain't ever go...
Joe Buck: [Rizzo polishes Joe's boots] Hey, you pretty damn good at that. I'll bet you could make a living at it if you tried. Ratso Rizzo: And end up a hunchback like my old man? You think I'm crippled, you should have caught him at the end of the d...
Professor Henry Higgins: All right, Eliza, say it again. Eliza Doolittle: The rine in spine sties minely in the pline. Professor Henry Higgins: [sighs] The *rain* in *Spain* stays *mainly* in the *plain*. Eliza Doolittle: Didn't ah sy that? Professor...
