I failed math twice, never fully grasping probability theory. I mean, first off, who cares if you pick a black ball or a white ball out of the bag? And second, if you’re bent over about the color, don’t leave it to chance. Look in the damn bag an...
I believe in recognizing every human being as a human being--neither white, black, brown, or red; and when you are dealing with humanity as a family there's no question of integration or intermarriage. It's just one human being marrying another human...
How memories lie to us. How time coats the ordinary with gold. How it breaks the heart to go back and attempt to re-live them. How crushed we are when we discover that the gold was merely gold-plating thinly coated over lead, chalk and peeling paint.
. . . I had found the edge. The place where you unstrap all your fastenings to the earth, to what you are what you have been, where you flame out on the edge of the spheres, and the sun and moon become eclipsed and the world below is as dead and remo...
There exists an oasis where inspiration bursts forth like black gold from the fertile loam and every odd bellbird chirps a melody worth remembering. There’s no bloody map or nautical chart that can deliver you there, but you know the instant you’...
Shane looked faintly injured. “I make it my business to know everything about silver. And I saw your notes. I study up on everything when it comes to your boss, anyway.” There was a flicker of jealousy about that, but she didn’t have time, or e...
Today is a black day. Tomorrow it may be white. You may look beautiful one day, and not the next. It is not only a matter of other people's perceptions, it's about our own perceptions. We constantly change. Every day our hair grows, our nails grow, w...
My last words to him were to assure him that we would bring Sally to join him later. And you know what your dad said? He said that he would wait for as long as it took." Grace bit her lip. "But she never came, did she? And he never stopped waiting.
They say that when you're about to die, your life flashes before your eyes. They never tell you that when you watch someone you once loved dying, hovering between this life and the next, it's twice as painful, because you're reliving two lives that t...
If I had known things would turn out this way, I would have trained harder. I would have learned to take care of myself. But I guess that's the point, isn't it? You never know what you're going to have to face, so you'd better be prepared.
The only way to get to where you want to go is to ruthlessly evaluate your where you are now. The key here is that your biggest obstacle in life is always yourself—not external factors.
I pulled him close. “You can try your best. The only problem is after this is all over with reality is going to be waiting for me.” He took my shirt off and tossed it over his shoulder pulling me down on the couch. He kissed me again, biting at m...
My troubles are all over, and I am at home; and often before I am quite awake, I fancy I am still in the orchard at Birtwick, standing with my friends under the apple trees.
One mile farther and I come to a second grave beside the road, nameless like the other, marked only with the dull blue-black stones of the badlands. I do not pause this time. The more often you stop the more difficult it is to continue. Stop too long...
He has an interview going on, so if anyone asks you anything about anything, smile and lie." "So, if they ask how it feels to spend our evenings filing briefings from three years ago, we should say it's great? Atticusa asked sarcastically, as he pull...
Hey dawg, wassup?" he said, in the strange way that white talent agents from Los Angeles do in an attempt to sound like young black men from underprivileged backgrounds. A linguistic fashion as peculiar as the lisp that everybody in medieval Spain ha...
Crazy Horse dreamed and went into the world where there is nothing but the spirits of all things. That is the real world that is behind this one, and everything we see here is something like a shadow from that one.
He was the crazy one who had painted himself black and defeated the world. She was the book thief without the words. Trust me, though, the words were on their way, and when they arrived, Liesel would hold them in her hands like the clouds, and she wo...
The black rock was sharp-edged, hot, and hard as corundum; it seemed not merely alien but impervious to life. Yet on the southern face of almost every rock the lichens grew, yellow, rusty-brown, yellow-green, like patches of dirty paint daubed on the...
I’ll meet you tomorrow morning at ten in your office, and explain everything. In the meantime, go home and get some sleep.” “I have a meeting with McConnell and Baroja tomorrow at ten A.M. to review some procedures,” he said. Now, that was th...
It’s good to know certain things: What’s departed, in order to know what’s left to come; That water’s immeasurable and incomprehensible And blows in the air Where all that’s fallen and silent becomes invisible; That fire’s the light our n...
