What was she dreaming about, Mrs. Ramsay wondered, seeing her engrossed, as she stood there, with some thought of her own, so that she had to repeat the message twice––ask Mildred if Andrew, Miss Doyle, and Mr. Rayley have come back?––The wor...
When He'd told his mother he wanted to go to military school so he could though up, she'd given him a strange look. (Not as strange as if he'd said he wanted to go to demon-fighting school so he could drink from the Mortal Cup, Ascend to the ranks of...
Eby wanted to say so much to her. She wanted to say that waking up is the most important part of grieving, that so many women in their family failed to do it, and she was proud of Kate for fighting her way back. But Eby didn't say anything. She could...
I quote my father to people almost every day. Part of that is because if you dispense your own wisdom, others often dismiss it; if you offer wisdom from a third party, it seems less arrogant and more acceptable. Of course, when you have someone like ...
Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn't see their thoughts as belonging to them. When ancient Greeks had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was tel...
Yes, Cabbage: prison diplomacy. It’s called offering the newcomer a very warm welcome. You can tell Mares that I made lots of friends at two in the morning on the first night and continued making friends in the back of the laundry room and if I did...
Cecil reached for Dave, but Dave stepped back. "Dave, why are you doing this? You're not getting paid. Lovejoy called you off the case. You want the truth? You're compulsive. You can't leave it alone. You're like Adam Streeter, you know that? You liv...
The Engineer smiled (internally, for of course it had no mouth). It was feeling good. It was feeling optimistic. Moving at its current speed, it would arrive back in Ireland in plenty of time to shut everything down before a series of overloads and p...
Of all the things I've ever done, perhaps none was more difficult than turning away from my beautiful girl and walking away, leaving her there, never to look back. But my friend Tom, my ever-faithful good friend Tom said, pointing down the hall away ...
Ride?" Rhage snorted. "Please. That thing is a sewing machine with an air dam taped to it. My GTO could dust the fucker in fourth gear from a dead stop." When there was an odd sound from behind, John looked back. So did the three Brothers. "What." Xh...
I mean, okay, let's say we're all going to get better. Let's just pretend we will. Fine. Where are we going to go after we get better? What are we going to do with all of our newfound healthy behaviors? Back out into the world that screwed us up and ...
That night I looked up at those same stars, but I didn't want any of those things. I didn't want Egypt, or France, or far-flung destinations. I just wanted to go back to my life from my childhood, just to visit it, and touch it, and to convince mysel...
Zafar argues that the greatest influence on a writer may be on her psychic dispositions as a writer. Reading Philip Roth, writes Zafar, might clear the way of inhibitions that held you back from writing about reckless desire, the temptations of power...
He couldn't have pulled back the lock, they couldn't simply have climbed over the sides of the stall in all of three seconds, because those weren't the rules of the game. Theirs was the intoxication of the hunter, his the terror of the prey. Once the...
His thumb went back and forth over the satin, as if he were rubbing her hip as he had when they’d been together, and he moved his leg over so that it was on top of the skirting. It wasn’t the same, though. There was no body underneath, and the fa...
Many in the church have turned their back on serious study, and have embraced an anti-intellectualism which refuses to learn anything from scholarship at all lest it corrupt their pure faith. It is time to end this standoff, and to reestablish a herm...
Roza, my self-control is ten times stronger than yours." I opened my eyes, shifting to look into his. I brushed his hair back and smiled, certain my heart would expand and expand until there was nothing left of me. "Oh yeah? That's not the impression...
A steel door clapped open as a guard stepped from the bulletproof viewing station across the hall. "Adams!" "That you?" "I told you, I don't know-" The cop pointed straight at him. "Jeffrey Adams! Front and center!" The black man helped him rise to h...
It's strange how things seem to come full circle. You know what I mean? I'm sure you do. The way your life seems to drift along with no set path, then something good happens to you and you can trace the line that brought you there back to a specific ...
The library in summer is the most wonderful thing because there you get books on any subject and read them each for only as long as they hold your interest, abandoning any that don't, halfway or a quarter of the way through if you like, and store up ...
Darling it may be a long time before we see one another again. But I want you to know. Every time I’ve said I love you- I meant it. There’s no two ways about it. The crew was talking about what’s ahead of us, but we all agreed on one thing. We�...
