Read him slowly, dear girl, you must read Kipling slowly. Watch carefully where the commas fall so you can discover the natural pauses. He is a writer who used pen and ink. He looked up from the page a lot, I believe, stared through his window and li...
When the boy was with his father in the house outside of the city, he was drilled about visitors to the apartment. His father took careful notes. Were there men? he said. And all the boy could think of were the men who brought their dinners, who fixe...
Let us begin this letter, this prelude to an encounter, formally, as a declaration, in the old-fashioned way: I love you. You do not know me (although you have seen me, smiled at me). I know you (although not so well as I would like. I want to be the...
Zane Hollander stood in profile a few feet away. Sophie's breath caught. Up close, he looked like he'd been carved from the most glorious, most gorgeous stone on the planet. His blond hair was straight, on the longer side and sticking up in GQ messin...
Oshima's silent for a time as he gazes at the forest, eyes narrowed. Birds are flitting from one branch to the next. His hands are clasped behind his head. "I know how you feel," he finally says. "But this is something you have to work out on your ow...
I implore the atheist not to judge the religious and I implore the religious to not find fault with the atheist. Be a good religious person, or be a good atheist person. How? By putting an end to faultfinding. All do what they believe in their best i...
He opened his mouth. The words were there. He was about to say them when a jolt of terror went through him, the terror of someone who, wandering in a mist, pauses only to realise that they have stopped inches from the edge of a gaping abyss. The way ...
Now, we see what we are shown. We have gotten used to being shown no matter what, within or beyond the limited range of human sight. This habituation to the monopoly of visualization-on-command strongly suggests that only those things that can in som...
Do I perceive a softening in your heart for me, damoiselle?" He laughed at her scowl. "Beware maid. I will tell you true. After you will come another and then another. There are no strings that can tether me to any woman. So guard your heart." "My lo...
Maybe it's all utterly meaningless. Maybe it's all unutterably meaningful. If you want to know which, pay attention to what it means to be truly human in a world that half the time we're in love with and half the time scares the hell out of us. Any f...
Since 1849 I have studied incessantly, under all its aspects, a question which was already in my mind since 1832. I confess that my scheme is still a mere dream, and I do not shut my eyes to the fact that so long as I alone believe it to be possible,...
Never let me lose the marvel of your statue-like eyes, or the accent the solitary rose of your breath places on my cheek at night. I am afraid of being, on this shore, a branchless trunk, and what I most regret is having no flower, pulp, or clay for ...
I feel like, God expects me to be human. I feel like, God likes me just the way I am: broken and empty and bruised. I feel like, God doesn't look at me and wish that I were something else, because He likes me just this way. I feel like, God doesn't w...
Tonight I saw Jesus with the eyes on my face. He looks half lion and half man. But not more like a lion and not more like a man, rather the same, I have never seen anything like the face of Jesus before, %100 one thing but %100 another thing: a lion ...
Instead of replying, Alec reached down and took Magnus's hands. Magnus let Alec pull him to his feet, a questioning look in his eyes. Before he could say anything, Alec drew him closer and kissed him. Magnus made a soft, pleased sound, and gripped th...
My Wish I wish my hearing would cease So I could no longer hear your words. I wish my eyes would cease So I could no longer see your gestures. I wish my mind would cease So I could no longer replay your words and gestures. I wish my heart would cease...
In the aftermath of the recent wave action in the Indian Ocean, even the archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williamson [ ], proved himself a latter-day Voltairean by whimpering that he could see how this might shake belief in a friendly creator. Wil...
Niall had been able to mask the odor of fairy from Eric in the restaurant, but I saw from the flare of Eric's nostrils that the intoxicating scent clung to me. Eric's eyes closed in ecstasy, and he actually licked his lips. I felt like a T-bone just ...
...'Space' seemed a blasphemous libel for this empyrean ocean of radiance in which they swam. He could not call it 'dead'; he felt life pouring into him from it every moment. How indeed should it be otherwise, since out of this ocean the worlds and a...
I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I kn...
Her tears fell abundantly--but her grief was so truly artless, that no dignity could have made it more respectable in Emma's eyes--and she listened to her and tried to console her with all her heart and understanding--really for the time convinced th...