If a man like that is killed, there is always another to take his place. That is not the important thing. But to act so that no man dares to strike you because he knows you speak the truth, to act so that you can no longer be arrested because you are...
A lifetime, one might say, of loss, but we here recognize something much different, more nuanced, more full of shadows. A lifetime of hope. And anyone who's done both - hoped and lost - knows that in many ways, hoping is worse....As I grew into early...
The wisdom of hindsight would reveal that I had no clue how to find myself, no idea how to love myself, and no ability to be myself. Mix all of those three dilemmas, and you’ve created a cocktail that will knock anyone out. Even though I couldn’t...
I'm going to make it very hard. I love you and I'm tired of being told what I should want and what I should do. You and I got married and I can stomp my foot and scream and rail at you because of the deal you made with my father, but the truth is I w...
I think the highest forgiveness is to accept that creation is thoroughly tangled, with every possible quality given outlet for expression. People need to accept once and for all that there is only one life and each of us is free to shape it through t...
I don't know where to start," one [writing student] will wail. Start with your childhood, I tell them. Plug your nose and jump in, and write down all your memories as truthfully as you can. Flannery O' Connor said that anyone who has survived childho...
She was smart and terribly determined, this girl-her will was pure steel, through and through-but she was as human as anyone else. She was lonely, too. Lonely in a way that perhaps only single girls fresh from small Midwestern towns know. Homesicknes...
Katherine,” he says when we finish. We’re breathing each other’s air and lying side by side, our noses almost touching. “Mick,” I say. “I love your name. It suits you perfectly. Katherine. Katherine. Katherine and Mick.” And when he say...
I’ve never needed a bodyguard, Evan.” His hands stilled on the glasses. “Maybe that isn’t such a bad idea now.” “It’s a terrible idea. I would never want anyone watching every move I make. It’s unnerving. There are fresh lemons in the...
No offense, doll, but that’s not something I’m willing to share. I’d prefer to live a long and happy life if it’s all the same to you.” “You can’t just throw out vague allegations and then say nothing else!” “See, that’s the good ...
Son, you can't go around painting yourself black, you hear?" "Why not, Papa?" "Because they'll take you away." "Why?" "Because you shouldn't want to be like black people or Jewish people or anyone who is...not us." "Who are Jewish people?" "You know ...
Oh, once you’ve been initiated into the Elderly, the world doesn’t want you back.” Veronica settled herself in a rattan chair and adjusted her hat just so. “We—by whom I mean anyone over sixty—commit two offenses just by existing. One is ...
All these years, her sole objective had been to keep still and hope no one would ever know. She had been a mistress of stillness. She had mastered the simulation of peace without a wisp of real peace, like a nun from a silent order who was screaming ...
I couldn't tell anyone how I felt because I knew they wouldn't understand. Oh, poor little Christina, falling for the bad man who treats her like dirt because she didn't know any better. And isn't it a pity that they don't still teach sex-ed in schoo...
Sometimes I think maybe they were right all along, the people on the other side in Zombieland. Maybe it would be better if we didn't love. If we didn't lose either. If we didn't get our hearts stomped on, shattered: if we didn't have to patch and rep...
I do not know, at this point, whether Joshua Joseph Spork is the man of my life. He could be. I have given it considerable thought. The jury is still out. The issue between you and me is that you wish to deprive me of the opportunity to find out. Joe...
A primary reason that people believe that life is getting worse is because our information about the problems of the world has steadily improved. If there is a battle today somewhere on the planet, we experience it almost as if we were there. During ...
I don't think every person is unique. If every person is unique, then unique is a completely unneccessary word." "Don't you think that every person has something specific that makes them special?" "Maybe, but if that's the case, then people are 99 pe...
Back in the 1800's, Ormsby Island was one of South Carolina's crown jewels. The island was owned by Maxwell Ormsby, a very wealthy man who liked to entertain everyone from heads of state to artists and authors and anyone who knew how to make money in...
Personally, I think sex should be like math. At school. No one really cares if they're crap at math. They even proclaim it. They'll say to anyone, "Yeah, I don't mind science and English, but I'm absolutely shithouse at math." And other people will l...
We're human. We all occasionally wet ourselves. No one is really better than anyone else. We're just all trying to make it through the year as best we can. We screw up sometimes. We succeed sometimes. We laugh. We cry. We go on. Those are the things ...
