His feet went banging down some stairs. He closed his eyes. They went through cinders and dirt, his heels gathering small windrows of trash. A dim world receded above his upturned toes, shapes of skewed shacks erupted bluely in the niggard lamplight....
If you had to pack your whole life into a suitcase--not just the practical things, like clothing, but the memories of the people you had lost and the girl you had once been--what would you take? The last photograph you had of your mother? A birthday ...
A kind of second childhood falls on so many men. They trade their violence for the promise of a small increase of life span. In effect, the head of the house becomes the youngest child. And I have searched myself for this possibility with a kind of h...
Argh!" Thalia pushed me, and a shock went through my body that blew me backward ten feet into the water. Some of the campers gasped. A couple of the Hunters stifled laughs. "Sorry!" Thalia said, turning pale. "I didn't mean to—" Anger roared in my ...
Quick as a flash, Sawney Rath's eyes hardened. "Then I'm ordering you to skin Felch alive!" He took the otter's paw, closing it over the knife handle. "Obey me!" The crowded clearing became as silent as a tomb. All eyes were upon the Taggerung, await...
Here she tossed her foot impatiently, and showed an inch or two of calf. A sailor on the mast, who happened to look down at the moment, started so violently that he missed his footing and only saved himself by the skin of his teeth. 'If the sight of ...
You need to eat more." (...) "Then I'd get fat, and you wouldn't like me." Johnny tweaked her nose in teasing response and shifted her into a more comfortable position with her back against his chest. Her head lolled against his shoulder, and his arm...
Did I never explain to you about love, Reva?' Pa asked. I gave him a look, and he laughed uncomfortably. 'I guess not. Let me put it in a way you'll understand. Love is like stinging nettles. Only they prick from the inside out, starting at your hear...
You are unwilling to pay that price, even knowing that the consolation prize is not only to learn every philosophy that has ever existed, but ones which have not yet been conceived? Even knowing that if you do not accept, you will soon cease to learn...
Liall realized that this was the first time he had really been alone with Scarlet. He stood up and held out his hand. The blanket dropped from his shoulders. "Come here." Scarlet reached out to him tentatively and Liall quickly dragged him into his a...
Freedom was a foot away when they turned back to me. The one who kept speaking, a tall vamp with a handsome curly-haired glamour, shook his head. "Sorry." He bared his fangs in an apologetic grin. "We're glad you aren't what's hunting us, but we're n...
Dictionopolis is the place where all the words in the world come from. They're grown right here in our orchards." "I didn't know that words grew on trees," said Milo timidly. "Where did you think they grew?" shouted the earl irritably. A small crowd ...
A Manifesto for Introverts 1. There's a word for 'people who are in their heads too much': thinkers. 2. Solitude is a catalyst for innovation. 3. The next generation of quiet kids can and must be raised to know their own strengths. 4. Sometimes it he...
It was not very long afterwards that Michael woke up one morning with a curious feeling inside him. He knew, the moment he opened his eyes, that something was wrong but he was not quite sure what it was. "What is today, Mary Poppins?" He enquired, pu...
Pain has an odd way of expressing itself in the acts of business. No matter how many setbacks a leader might experience, there always seems to be a new opaque watermark of endurance testing, invisibly triggered for erratic combustion in each compound...
She'd stutter all the reasons why she shouldn't, shaking her head adamantly. But her body..her body would grow hot with excitement. She'd get wet at the thrill of it. So fucking wet that i'd smell her, telling me she's not even wearing panties to smo...
Frodo raised his head, and then stood up. Despair had not left him, but the weakness had passed. He even smiled grimly, feeling now as clearly as a moment before he had felt the opposite, that what he had to do, he had to do, if he could, and that wh...
Just then, just when I thought I would be free from the repeated blows to my tender head of the Stupidity Hammer, the Stupidity Hammer rose up from the shining screen, drew back, whirled hugely, and with great force and might and main slammed me righ...
My father never put a book into my hands and never forbade a book. Instead, he let me roam and graze, making my own more or less appropriate selections. I read gory tales of historic heroism that nine-teenth century parents were suitable for children...
Noise has one advantage. It drowns out words. And suddenly he realized that all his life he had done nothing but talk, write, lecture, concoct sentences, search for formulations and amend them, so in the end no words were precise, their meanings were...
Miranda shook her head slowly. 'Good heavens. That's quite an act you put on.' He drew himself up haughtily. 'I beg your pardon.' 'An act,' Miranda repeated. 'Stand as tall as you like, and frown at me all you wish. I saw you just now. You were feedi...
