When I was ten all I knew was that I hated the weird words used to describe whatever it was that was wrong with my brother—to this day I think it all happened because he was overtaken by evil spirits that got loose in that haunted house ride at the...
I quickly, swiftly, reach in, pluck out, and peer into the mirror. 'I am still here.' I am in the glass, in this moment. After this moment, I may not be here; I may be a person who does not know where she is, or why. I leave the kitchen table to bath...
My Oneness will stop the machine that overtakes people's minds. Do we really need new clothes, or new cars, or new TVs? Should we really ingest food made from chemicals not of this earth? Should we really give our money to people who don't need it bu...
Well," he said slowly, "sometimes there's a passion that comes in its springtime to ill fate or death. And because it ends in its beauty, it's what the harpers sing of and the poets make stories of: the love that escapes the years.... "All or nothing...
A painter,” he said, as though the word were an insult. “I’m a .” “You’re a ? a writer.” “What do you write?” “Stories. Books. A book. Fiction.” “Fiction. . That’s not writing.” “What do you write?” “I write the trut...
On the late afternoon streets, everyone hurries along, going about their own business. Who is the person walking in front of you on the rain-drenched sidewalk? He is covered with an umbrella, and all you can see is a dark coat and the shoes striking ...
When the stories of our life no longer bind us, we discover within them something greater. We discover that within the very limitations of form, of our maleness and femaleness, of our parenthood and our childhood, of gravity on the earth and the chan...
Use them with care, and use them with respect as to the transformations they can achieve, and you have an extraordinary research tool. Go banging about with a psychedelic drug for a Saturday night turn-on, and you can get into a really bad place, psy...
You should've thought of that before becoming a fireman." "Thought!" he said. "Was I given a choice? I was raised to think the best thing in the world to read. The best thing is television and radio and ball games and a home I can't afford and, Good ...
... 'But Gold was not all. The other kings bring Frank Innocence and Mirth.' | Darcourt was startled, then delighted. 'That is very fine, Yerko; is it your own?' | 'No, it is in the story. I saw it in New York. The kings say, We bring you Gold, Frank...
Equity bids us be merciful to the weakness of human nature; to think less about the laws than about the man who framed them, and less about what he said than about what he meant; not to consider the actions of the accused so much as his intentions; n...
Percy does not like it when I read a book. He puts his face over the top of it, and moans. He rolls his eyes, sometimes he sneezes. The sun is up, he says, and the wind is down. The tide is out, and the neighbor's dogs are playing. But Percy, I say, ...
The real desire [of feminism] is to break away from rationalism, androcentrisim and all forms of philosophy and practices that discriminate against women. The objective is to recover the use of senses, desire, taste, pleasure, pain and the mystery of...
Should a traveler, returning from a far country, bring us an account of men wholly different from any with whom we were ever acquainted, men who were entirely divested of avarice, ambition, or revenge, who knew no pleasure but friendship, generosity,...
The Grocery Checkout Proviso: The more things you care about, the more vulnerable you are. If you are part of that epicurean minority in this country that is still offended by violations of the English language, you will be slapped in the face every ...
It had been more or less the same for Jilly. Except that she had her parents there to field any phone calls, to accept the flowers at the door and pick up the cards that dropped like tears through the letterbox. She sat before her dressing table mirr...
She hesitated, wiping her hands off on her apron. “I’m not sure if I’ll be here when you get back. This place is a little—it’s a little much for me.” She didn’t have to tell him how it was. He had lived here for years, in a house that w...
The children are in love but do not know with what. They talk in gibberish, muse themselves into an indefinable pallor, and when they are completely at a loss they invent a language that maddens them. My fish. My hook. My fox. My snare. My fire. You ...
Separating fact and fiction in Inca history is impossible, because virtually all the sources available are Spanish accounts of stories that had already been vetted by the Inca emperors to highlight their own heroic roles. Imagine a history of modern ...
The Talmud tells a story about a great Rabbi who is dying, he has become a , but he cannot die because outside all his students are praying for him to live and this is distracting to his soul. His maidservant climbs to the roof of the hut where the R...
After this, Boy became very curious about the mansion where the clothes and the food came from. He made me describe everything. Then he asked Good Thing 'Are there books in this mansion, too?' 'And pictures and jewels,' Good Thing said through me. 'W...
