Just then there came the wheezy sound of an accordion. It was an odd little tune that, had he been alive exactly one hundred and fifty years later, the scarf-wearing pirate would have recognized as the first few bars from ‘Theme to Murder, She Wrot...
When the Indians saw us whipping our children, they thought at first that we must hate our children, but then they thought, no, no one can hate his child. They decided it must be a religious rite, to make the child hate this world and long for the ne...
The spirit who inhabits her animates us all. Destroy the host, you destroy the power. The young die first; the old wither slowly; the eldest perhaps would go last. But she is the Queen of the Damned, and the Damned can't live without her.
It seems to me that my whole life I've been standing on some tower or a pillbox or a trampoline, waving the names of writers, as if we needed rescue. And the first person I had to rescue was myself.
Perhaps it is only the light. Perhaps it is the power of the realms at work through me. Or perhaps it is some combination of spirit and desire, love and hope, some alchemy that we each possess and can put to use, if first we know were to look without...
Death was an inverse Big Bang; an impossible magic trick where everything had become nothing in the very same instant, where one state had been replaced so completely by another that no evidence of the first could be detected, and where the catalyst ...
For a Christian to be a Christian, he must first be a sinner. Being a sinner is a prerequisite for being a church member. The Christian church is one of the few organizations in the world that requires a public acknowledgement of sin as a condition f...
Don't be jealous of anyone. I guarantee you, if everyone walked into a room, and dumped their problems onto the floor, when they saw what everyone else's problems were, they'd be scrambling to get their own problems back before someone else got to th...
She grinned, looking for all the world like a sticky-mouthed little girl who had just convinced her gullible mother that she really did drop the first piece of candy into the storm drain and would need another.
Teo had once claimed that human history began with a storm: the interval between lightning and thunder, between flash and rumble felt in the body's core, was primitive man's first experiences of time -- the awakening of consciousness, the birth of th...
I will be known forever as the Puppy who chased a cutpurse and caught fish garbage instead. My descendants will pretend I'm not in their bloodline. No – no one will want to make descendants with me. [from Beka Cooper's journal of her first day as a...
From the instant of our first meeting I judged him so, though it could be said that I was prejudiced. When one is standing naked on a slave-auction block in a wind cold enough to freeze a demon's backside, one is unlikely to have a fair impression of...
Like Alexander the Great and Caesar, I’m out to conquer the world. But first I have to stop at Walmart and pick up some supplies.
I am not challenging you to be you, I am challenging you to be you. In the first case, I’d be challenging you for your role; while in the second instance, I’d be issuing you a challenge for you to step up and be the best possible you.
I remember my first cell phone number still. I may call it and ask to speak to myself from eight years ago. If they say I have the wrong number I’ll tell them, No, right number, wrong time.
There are two apples, one is green and the other is red. Which apple would the wise man choose? The answer is: I’ll take the one you didn’t choose. You see, you are the fool here, because I poisoned the first apple!
I'm the kind of guy who puts other people first. Particularly if there’s danger up ahead. Now I’m not saying I’m any more cowardly than the next man, unless that next man is any other man besides my clone.
When a whisper seems like a shout, I know I need to get some sleep. But I can’t lay down without first taking off my bunny ears.
It is more blessed to give than to receive”, the Bible advocates. When it comes to advice, I humbly submit that it is more blessed to avail yourself of it, utilise it, apply it yourself, before you give it. Put it to use first before suggesting it ...
Jeremy tried to be an interesting person. The trouble was that he was the kind of person who, having decided to be an interesting person, would first of all try to find a book called How to Be An Interesting Person and then see whether there were any...
I remember that story. You have read it four times." Samson shrugged. "Why should I stop with the first reading? Nobody says, 'That was a fine piece of music. I'll never listen to that again." But some people treat books that way. Not I!
