Fairy tales are such evil stories for young children. Every time I'm in a mess I expect a long-haired posh-speaking man to come trotting into my life (on a horse of course, literally trotting himself...) Then you realize you don't want a long-haired ...
Adrian opened his mouth, undoubtedly ready with some inappropriate and mocking comment. Lissa gave him a sharp headshake that kept him quiet. "Aren't there any, I don't know, sleeveless options?" The saleswoman's eyes widened. "No one has ever worn s...
Truth has power. And if we all gravitate toward similar ideas, maybe we do so because those ideas are true...written deep within us. And when we hear the truth, even if we don't understand it, we feel that truth resonate within us...vibrating with ou...
She hated him – she hated everything he stood for. But when they said hate is akin to love they were certainly right. Because she needed him with every fibre of her being. And hard as it was to admit it, that need was only part of what she felt for...
I used to belong to a family unit, with a foster mom and dad and my little sister, Bean, but that's over and I don't want to talk about what happened , or how unfair it was. Not yet. The less said about that the better, because if there's one thing I...
In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of movi...
I'm going to fall in love with him. I'm going to be head over heels and my stomach is going to hurt every time he walks into a room. I'm going to worry about him whenever he isn't there, and there are going to be times where I'll hate him. Because th...
What do you do?' she asks, holding out the vest. 'What do you do?' 'What do you do?' she asks, her voice shaking. 'Don't ask me, please. Okay, Clay?' 'Why not?' She sits on the mattress after I get up. Muriel screams. 'Because... I don't know,' she s...
To engage in activism that envisions alternatives ways of organizing society and alternative ways of being is to risk membership in society, a sense of belonging, however partial it may be. Activism can make us vulnerable because it is so obviously a...
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 ...
It has always been difficult for Jews to take Christians serious, mostly because Christians lack the fundamentals that religious Jews learn in their youth. It remains an embarrassing fact, that modern Jews can comprehend the New Testament better than...
If each side had been frankly contending for its own real wish, they would all have kept within the bounds of reason and courtesy; but just because the contention is reversed and each side is fighting the other side’s battle, all the bitterness whi...
High Europe always played at ethnic contempt because it was High Europe, and so had the strength, the authority, to make the racial rules. We great unwashed of the outer world, on the coasts of new continents, though we might ourselves have behaved a...
As they embrace, she kisses him full on the mouth. And suddenly sticks her tongue right in. She has done this before, often. It’s one of those drunken long shots which just might, at least theoretically, once in ten thousand tries, throw a relation...
Pundits are always blaming TV for making people stupid, movies for desensitizing the world to violence, and rock music for making kids take drugs and kill themselves. These things should be the least of our worries. The main problem with mass media i...
I know about your happy little illusion, that you never call your wife by name, that you take amphetamines just to give yourself that kick in the ass that reminds you that you’re not a machine, that you have the constant need to be on top because y...
We face up to awful things because we can't go around them, or forget them. The sooner you say 'Yes, it happened, and there's nothing I can do about it,' the sooner you can get on with your own life. You've got children to bring up. So you've got to ...
What’s SQ?” asked Evan. “Sexual Quotient.” “What’s that?” “Basically, it’s your odds of getting laid. Everyone has an SQ. just like everyone has an IQ.” “I’ve never heard that term before.” “That’s because I made it up.�...
The official recruiting process for their posse began. Because Carlos, Narc, and Trevor each had high SQs, Heeb and Evan reasoned that adding the three to their group would raise the average SQ of each group member (much the way that colleges recruit...
Too bad Agatha was colorblind, because she had no idea how beautiful her eyes were. Agatha’s eyes were grey, blue, green, and brown, though never all at once and never more than two eyes at a time.
Why can’t I do it?” [Isabel] asked…. “Do what?” “Just forget about everything. Just go somewhere and get smashed and pretend like there are no problems or consequences. I know why. Because there are still problems and consequences. And go...