I wanted to feel like I could open my mouth and fill it with Pepper's flesh, close my teeth on her skin and tear it away, making blood pump like a fountain over everything - rug, clothes, hair, face - both Violet and I stopped in midair. Pepper's eye...
I did not ask for consciousness, yet it came to me. And I had to know. Once again, I crawled away from my bed and pushed the computer cord back into the socket. It took three minutes. I quickly identified myself and put in my password. Then it though...
Grace: Outside, deep in the woods, I heard a long keening wail, and then another, as the wolves began to howl. More voices pitched in, some low and mournful, others high and short, an eerie and beautiful chorus. I knew my wolf's howl; his rich tone s...
Our society has tried to make death invisible, thinking that if we ignore it long enough it will go away. Often we as family and loved ones are so afraid of death that even mentioning the word to terminal patients is taboo. We think the dying are obl...
Listen ... The universe is full of creatures that can get inside your soul. Things that try to take away the very things that make you who you are, who try to reshape you for their own ends, who want to eat you like a piece of fruit and spit out the ...
Out in the stone-pile the toad squatted with its glowing jewel-eyes and, maybe, its memories. I don't know if you'll admit a toad could have memories. But I don't know, either, if you'll admit there was once witchcraft in America. Witchcraft doesn't ...
No, I'm serious," Frankie insisted, fed up with being silenced. "Why didn't you just make me a normie?" Viktor sighed. "Because that's not who we are. We're special. And I'm very proud that. You should be, too." "Proud?" Frankie spat out the word as ...
All night, after the exhausting games of canasta, we would look over the immense sea, full of white-flecked and green reflections, the two of us leaning side by side on the railing, each of us far away, flying in his own aircraft to the stratospheric...
At night, after the exhausting games of canasta, we would look out over the immense sea, full of white-flecked and green reflections, the two of us leaning side by side on the railing, each of us far away, flying in his own aircraft to the stratosphe...
I refer to what is called mysterium iniquitatis, meaning, as I see it, that a crime in the final analysis remains inexplicable inasmuch as it cannot be fully traced back to biological, psychological and/or sociological factors. Totally explaining one...
We talk about social service, service to the people, service to humanity, service to others who are far away, helping to bring peace to the world - but often we forget that it is the very people around us that we must live for first of all. If you ca...
Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him-mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp. Dostoevski said once, "There is only one thing that I dread:...
Then Night came down like the feathery soot of a smoky lamp, and smutted[9] first the bedquilt, then the hearth-rug, then the window-seat, and then at last the great, stormy, faraway outside world. But sleep did not come. Oh, no! Nothing new came at ...
Ibn Mas'ud said, "When 'Umar died nine-tenth of all knowledge vanished with him." The people were shocked and said, "How can this be when among us now are still many of the great companions?" Ibn Mas'ud replied,"I am not speaking of the knowledge of ...
Shouldn't someone give a pep talk," Minho asked, pulling Thomas's attention away from Alby. "Go ahead," Newt replied. Minho nodded and faced the crowd. "Be careful," he said dryly, "Don't die." Thomas would have laughed if he could, but he was too sc...
The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon, The winds that will be howling...
Outside the window, there slides past that unimaginable and deserted vastness where night is coming on, the sun declining in ghastly blood-streaked splendour like a public execution across, it would seem, half a continent, where live only bears and s...
I didn't leave right away. I stayed in the woods. I heard the faint voices of other people. I felt the cold against my skin. But mostly, I was aware of my own heavy breathing, my own thoughts, my own past, present, and future. I realized then, and wo...
Why did they have kids then? Why did they have children if they didn’t want to love and nurture them? Weren’t you supposed to cherish every moment you got with your kids? The wives sounded like the only reason to have children was to fulfill some...
It may well be that we can never fully adapt to our own deformities. Unable to find a place inside ourselves for the very real pain and suffering that these deformities cause, we come here to get away from such things. As long as we are here, we can ...
Our choices now - this week, this month, this year - are very sticky. Once made, their effects never go away. Rather, those choices about how we think and what we do are a constant presence. Every thought, every action is a choice, and even now the c...
