This was no longer art: it even destroyed the harmony of the portrait itself. They were alive, they were human eyes! It seemed as if they had been cut out of a living man and set there. Here there was not that lofty pleasure which comes over the soul...
Now very much against her will, she thought of the way Jace had looked at her then, the blaze of faith in his eyes, his belief in her. He had always thought she was strong. He had showed it in everything he did, in every look and every touch. Simon h...
Maybe I can climb one of those," Simon said, eyeing the fat white pillars that held up the slanted roof of the Hall. Runes were carved on them in overlapping patterns, but otherwise there were no visible handholds. "Work off steam that way." "Oh, com...
Baby, I'll never leave you. I promise ..." Matt tried to talk, but Crystal May shushed him, laying a finger across his lips. She looked at him, her blue eyes wet with tears and shining like priceless diamonds. "I love you, Matt. I want to live with y...
There were fat cats and skinny cats. The long-tailed and the bobbed. The daring young leapers, and the old windowsill sleepers. Balls of waddling fluff, smooth-coated prowlers, and hairless ones that looked fragile and wise. The tiger-striped, the ri...
I have always been interested in witchcraft and superstition, but have never had much traffic with ghosts, so I began asking people everywhere what they thought about such things, and I began to find out that there was one common factor - most people...
Man is not to direct or to be directed anymore than a tree or a cloud or a stone Man is not to rule or be ruled anymore than a faith or a truth or a love Man is not to doubt or to be doubted anymore than a wave or a seed or a fire There is no problem...
He pulled the Carstairs family ring from his finger and held it out to Will. "Take it." Will let his eyes drift down toward it, and then up to Jem's face. A dozen awful things he could say, or do, went through his mind. One did not slough off a perso...
Will’s voice dropped. “Everyone makes mistakes, Jem.” “Yes,” said Jem. “You just make more of them than most people.” “I —” “You hurt everyone,” said Jem. “Everyone whose life you touch.” “Not you,” Will whispered. “...
Will. For a moment her heart hesitated. She remembered when Will had died, her agony, the long nights alone, reaching across the bed every morning when she woke up, for years expecting to find him there, and only slowly growing accustomed to the fact...
THE MOON was but a chin of gold A night or two ago, And now she turns her perfect face Upon the world below. Her forehead is of amplest blond; Her cheek like beryl stone; Her eye unto the summer dew The likest I have known. Her lips of amber never pa...
You people do not have to live like this!" the man pleaded. "We are humans, made in the image of God. No machine has the right to order us around." The man reached inside his box, no bigger than a foot square, and took out a small black book. "Here i...
I am an explorer,' she whispered, 'setting courageously off into the wild unknown.' It was not a daydream she'd ever had before, but she felt the familiar comfort of her imagination wrapping around her. She was an archeologist, a scientist, a treasur...
By now it was too late to call St. Jude. He chose an out-of-the-way patch of airport carpeting and lay it down to sleep. He didn't understand what had happened to him. He felt like a piece of paper that had once had coherent writing on it but had bee...
I pulled the dress out of the bag and held it in front of me. Ella sat up straighter and squinted her eyes, while Michael and Paco made the noises men make when a woman says, “What do you think?” Fathers probably teach those noises to their sons ...
Wear that scarf," he said, pointing to a blue cashmere scarf hanging on a peg. "It matches your eyes." Alec looked at it. Suddenly he was filled with hate - for the scarf, for Magnus, and most of all for himself. "Don't tell me," he said. "The scarf'...
Few approach Nick the rest of the night, I am the only one brave enough to take him his specially made tea. "Thank you", he said barely glancing up at me. "You're welcome", I said waiting for him to look up at me but he won't. I have to force myself ...
She is a mess, her dress once pulled together long and fresh, now drooping and awkwardly weighted to one side of her head. "What happened? Are you okay?" The women clamor around her. Nick walks out in perfect order and perfect swagger, passing her wi...
Have you ever felt as if your dreams were more memorable, more alive, than what you knew to be reality? Have your dreams ever seemed so tangible as to make you question upon waking if you’d truly only dreamt them? Have they at times been addictive ...
We give to God of our strength, not our weakness. But we also say: “Da lifneh mi ata omed”—Know before whom you stand. We know what we are in the face of that. We see the full picture—God and ourselves. We cannot see ourselves as more than we...
It must be murder to be an aging beauty, a former Tadzio, to see your future as an ignored spectator rushing up to meet you like the hard pavement. What a small sip of gall to be able to time with each passing year the ever-shorter interval in which ...
