If you were smart," Genghis said, "you would have borrowed the silverware of one of your friends." "We never thought of that," Klaus said. When one is forced to tell atrocious lies, one often feels a guilty flutter in one's stomach, and Klaus felt su...
What I love about New York: the faster and more recklessly my cab driver drives the safer and all around better I feel.
© Carlyle Labuschagne 2014 " As I watched her run down the path and melt with the shadows, I wasn't sure how to feel about her, or the fact that I may just have aided in her escape and doomed us all. I wanted to believe that anyone given a second ch...
How could a woman who had an abortion not feel guilt or some sense of remorse? How could she justify what she'd done? Whom else could she blame when everyone was telling her it's her choice? Without facing the truth and confessing it, how could she b...
Pain? Yes, of course. Racing without pain is not racing. But the pleasure of being ahead outweighed the pain a million times over. To hell with the pain. What's six minutes of pain compared to the pain they're going to feel for the next six months or...
Without question, positive thinking will do more for you, will make you feel better, do better, let you have more fun, and be liked by more people than negative thinking ever will.
Real travel is not about the highlights with which you dazzle your friends once you're home. It's about the loneliness, the solitude, the evenings spent by yourself, pining to be somewhere else. Those are the moments of true value. You feel half prou...
Aren’t you going to hit him?” Éibhear asked. “I don’t feel like it.” “Good gods.” Gwenvael stood. “This is worse than we thought, Éibhear. Up, brother.” Gwenvael grabbed Briec’s arm and pulled him to his feet. “There is only o...
We can learn to pay attention, concentrate, devote ourselves to authors. We can slow down so we can hear the voice of texts, feel the movement of sentences, experience the pleasure of words--and own passages that speak to us. (p. 41)
Sometimes books feel like the only thing that keep her sane. Actually, she knows that they're the only reason she's still even vaguely okay right now. That's what she clings to: reading great books and seeing great films and, for as long as she's imm...
Why must people kneel down to pray? If I really wanted to pray I’ll tell you what I'd do. I'd go out into a great big field all alone or in the deep, deep woods and I'd look up into the sky—up—up—up—into that lovely blue sky that looks as i...
The 1970s was the decade of liberation, of anger at injustice and demands for recognition and rights. But over time, the demand for specific rights degraded into a generalized sense of entitlement, the demand for specific recognition into a generaliz...
I am crying, he thought, opening his eyes to stare through the soapy, stinging water. I feel like crying, so I must be crying, but it's impossible to tell because I'm underwater. But he wasn't crying. Curiously, he felt too depressed to cry. Too hurt...
This is beyond understanding." said the king. "You are the wisest man alive. You know what is preparing. Why do you not make a plan to save yourself?" And Merlin said quietly, "Because I am wise. In the combat between wisdom and feeling, wisdom never...
We wind our way up the spiral staircase and then down the long hallway that leads to his room. I feel almost like I’m watching the scene unfold from outside my body. My fingers are interlocked with his as he pulls me toward a moment that’s going ...
She sat, rediscovering the fullness of her first tongue in one long submersion. Again and again she would pause on a word Melio uttered. She would roll it around in her mind, feeling the contours of it. At times her mouth gaped open, her lips moving ...
...I'm worried I will leave grad school and no longer be able to speak English. I know this woman in grad school, a friend of a friend, and just listening to her talk is scary. The semiotic dialetics of intertextual modernity. Which makes no sense at...
Mercer,” Polly says, “we are now going to hug. As a group. The experience will be very un-English. It will be good for you. Do not speak, at all, especially not in an attempt to diffuse the emotional intensity of the situation.” They hug, somew...
I am reading . I suddenly wanted to. I almost know it by heart, but I can still sink right into it. I know no other book that is so much like going on a journey. When I put it down to this, I feel as if I am also waiting with Pippin for the echoes of...
The poor are so common they're invisible, just part of the ambience of this place. I tuck a few soles under them as they sleep and walk off, feeling like a guilty tourist here for thrillseeking in a culture that's trying desperately to survive. Can s...
Great. So basically you're saying your entire family is trained to kick my ass if I step out of line." Sherry tapped his chest with a smirk she didn't quite feel. "AND don't you forget it." "Well, except for me," Colby replied. "I leave the fighting ...