By necessity, we are direct and swift in speech and movement. This is the true dynamic that underlies our apocryphal rudeness. Also true: we do not make eye contact. Neither do we encourage it. Consider the number of humans a New Yorker will pass on ...
There is a horrifying loneliness at work in this time. No, listen to me. We lived six and seven to a room in those days, when I was still among the living. The city streets were seas of humanity; and now in these high buildings dim-witted souls hover...
Sarah Palin appears to have no testable core conviction except the belief (which none of her defenders denies that she holds, or at least has held and not yet repudiated) that the end of days and the Second Coming will occur in her lifetime. This com...
I nodded, unsure if Ted sounded admiring or angry. 'I waded in but I couldn't find him. I mean, is it possible - the water wasn't deep enough for him to drown. It doesn't make any sense.' 'My band made four brilliant albums and never had a single god...
On my first day in London I made an early start. Reaching the Public Record Office not much after ten, I soon secured the papers I needed for my research and settled in my place. I became, as is the way of the scholar, so deeply absorbed as to lose a...
PART 2 I felt doomed to death, But in a flash, Before I could reduce my thoughts To an emotion, I felt a mass leave my body: Departing. Then my mind becomes anonymous As is each night. Just unfinished thoughts, and a deep sickness inside, As I was fo...
Look out there. Can you feel them? Incredible to think - other human beings out there. You strain your eyes the whole day long, see nothing, hear nothing, still can't believe it somehow - but know it's true. Other warm bodies, hearts pumping blood. T...
We could have made it to the Arizona border in a few more hours if we hadn't been distracting each other with stupid little arguments. Don't get me wrong; I liked J.Lo fine. I've made that bed. But I'm not sure there's a person in the world I could b...
Politics are like shoes. On one side you have the left, and on the other side you have the right. And every politician is essentially a shoe salesman trying to sell you one shoe, either the left or the right, whichever one he stands for. So I guess t...
The censor pretends he is protecting tender hearts, shielding children from sex and violence, keeping the righteous in the right path, guarding against temptation, preserving virtue. How? by burning books, tearing out tongues, stretching necks, stoni...
You do not require a license to love someone; you don’t need to pass any complicated tests. Love does not have age limitations, rules, or restrictions. Love is our birthright—it is the one thing that all humans know how to do, the one thing we al...
The hardest lesson is Clare’s solitude. Sometimes I come home and Clare seems kind of irritated; I’ve interrupted some train of thought, broken into the dreary silence of her day. Sometimes I see an expression on Clare’s face that is like a clo...
Religious teachings say that animals don't have souls, but I don't believe that. Our pets cherish our every move, and wait patiently for us to return home from a day's work. Our pets would give their lives for us in a heartbeat and not ask for anythi...
I’m convinced that her obsession with Jesus was far more romantic than spiritual. I think she was actually attracted to him. I sincerely thought that one day while out on a grocery run, she would find some skinny, bearded, out-of-work Foote guy on ...
And then again, maybe it was some weird noise in my brother’s head, some little digital murmur he never told anyone about. I’ve heard about that – how you wake up one day and there’s like this permanent dial tone droning somewhere behind the ...
Very quickly, very suddenly, words fell through my mind. They landed on the floor of my thoughts, an in there, down there, I started to pick the words up. They were excerpts of truth gathered from inside me. Even in the night, in bed, they woke me. T...
Victor wrapped his fingers over my hand, pressing his face against my palm. “You’re the bravest girl I’ve ever met. I’m so incredibly proud of you.” “Who knew that one day the word someone would use to describe me is brave. Life is very u...
I suddenly remember being very little and being embraced by my father. I would try to put my arms around my father's waist, hug him back. I could never reach the whole way around the equator of his body; he was that much larger than life. Then one da...
And as a general rule, which may make all creditors who are inclined to be severe pretty comfortable in their minds, no men embarrassed are altogether honest, very likely. They conceal something; they exaggerate chances of good luck; hide away the re...
Maybe awful things is how God speaks to us, Vernon thought, trudging up the lightless tunnel. Maybe folks don’t trust in good things no more. Maybe awful things is all God’s got to remind us he’s alive. Maybe war is God come to life in men. Ver...
That's all my grandfather was guilty of, fear, faith in his words, but that was a high crime in her eyes. That's all Jack was guilty of that day, but I've lived with him a good while and I believe I understand him. Sometimes it might take an afternoo...
