Judith Rey watches the young woman. Once upon a time, I had a baby daughter. I dressed her in frilly frocks, enrolled her for ballet classes, and sent her to horse-riding camp five summers in a row. But look at her. She turned into Lester anyway. She...
Henry turned as if to dart out of the room, then swung around and stared at them, a look of confusion passing over his freckled face, as if he had only now had cause to wonder why Will, Tessa, and Jem might be crouching together in a mostly disused s...
I had been to school most all the time, and could spell, and read, and write just a little, and could say the multiplication table up to six times seven is thirty-five, and I don't reckon I could ever get any further than that if I was to live foreve...
How can a school prepare you for murderers and mad-men?' Taro asked. 'Friends who would betray you to your death. People in authority who use their power to perform the most unnatural acts. People hating you because you can't do things you aren't sup...
For some reasonthen, I remember how Sam hated to be laughed at, and all of the times I did it anyway, because I wanted him to feel stupid, and I wonder how anybody can be cruel to someone they love. How can anyone do anything but love each other and ...
The world has given me a good life since then, I won't deny it, but sometimes I hate the world, anyway. Dick Cheney, that apologist for water boarding and for too long chief preacher in the Holy Church of Whatever it Takes, got a brand-new heart whil...
ERIC: What are you always writin' in that book anyway? RODNEY: Poetry. TYRONE: Poetry? Rodney stops sketching and sentimentally flips through a few dozen pages of sketches and handwritten poems and notes. RODNEY: Poetry and pictures. Snapshots of our...
For us old-age pensioners, autumn is on the whole a dangerous season. He who knows how difficult it is for us to achieve any stability at all, how difficult it is to avoid distraction or destruction by one's own hand, will understant tha autumn, its ...
Ty?” I said, trying out your name, liking the way it sounded. “So what’s it like anyway? Australia?” You smiled then, and your whole face changed with it. It kind of lit up, like there were sunbeams coming from inside you. “You’ll find ou...
Killing oneself is, anyway, a misnomer. We don't kill ourselves. We are simply defeated by the long, hard struggle to stay alive. When somebody dies after a long illness, people are apt to say, with a note of approval, "He fought so hard." And they a...
Sometimes," says a fellow depressive, "I wish I was in a full body cast, with every bone in my body broken. That's how I feel anyway. Then, maybe, people would stop minimising my illness because they can actually see what's wrong with me. They seem t...
What is it we call life anyway? The lights that flash within us from time to time. Those lit moments, these tiny dots, one by one, added on from one end to the other, intermingling with each other sometimes, one on top of the other, or slipped undern...
Death was silence, loss, guilt. And anger. But life led that way, anyway. From birth, it was a slow, long march to the grave. Who said that? She couldn’t remember now. But it was true. They were born dying. If they were very lucky, the dying was ca...
Do you love yourself? The test is simple. Do you look at others and see anything besides another beautiful human being? Do you see somebody who is more beautiful or less beautiful than you? If so, look down a little deeper and ask yourself why. It ma...
Christmas is such a time of struggle anyway, crammed with busy and hurry and the expectation that you will be joyful, no matter what. Then, if you’re like me, when you just sit quietly, just be, and let yourself feel what you feel, the guilt creeps...
This is just a nigger talkin', an' a busted-back nigger. So it don't mean nothing, see? You couldn't remember it anyways. I seen it over an' over-a guy talkin' to another guy and it don't make no difference if he don't hear or understand. The thing i...
Why do they call them daytime dramas, anyway? Shouldn't they be bedtime dramas? All anyone ever talks about is getting someone into bed! Plus if you're at home watching, you're probably watching in bed. And if you're like me, after an hour or two of ...
My best day ever. Got up. Had breakfast. Came to school. Bored, as usual. Wishing I wasn't there, like usual. Kids ignoring me, suits me fine. Sitting with the other retards—we’re so special. Wasting my time. Yesterday was the same, and it's gone...
I might face death any minute now! But I should try not to put myself in harms' way as long as I can live. Of course it is not important if I die, because this is going to happen anyway. I know my purpose, my purpose is: How will my life or death imp...
... I don't believe in ghosts - not the scary white sheet, boogie-woogie type of ghost anyway. And yet ... I don't disbelieve either. I'm kind of sitting on the ghost fence, dangling my legs on both sides, not sure which way to jump. I think I might ...
If you live in the dark a long time and the sun comes out, you do not cross into it whistling. There's an initial uprush of relief at first, then-for me, anyway- a profound dislocation. My old assumptions about how the world works are buried, yet my ...
