Intense sunlight rained down on a half-submerged city. Waves crashed between buildings that stood like waterlogged tombstones. Skyscrapers of smashed glass and twisted rusting metal jutted from the churning swell as islands of broken dreams. A famili...
Please tell me you don't go around saying crap like that to everyone. No wonder no one in town ever talks to us. Wealthy families always have a crazy person or two. Is that really the role you want to play, Vi?" "We're not wealthy anymore. Remember? ...
The crow cawed again overhead, and a strong sea wind came in and burst through the trees, making the green pine needles shake themselves all over the place. That sound always gave me goose bumps, the good kind. It was the sound an orphan governess he...
If, as I suspect, my body survives by uttering itself over and over again, then I have some questions. If [I] am one word, so are my daughters, so are all of us in strings and loops. Each life is one short word slowly uttered.
There was one thing no one considered, however: Australia was populated by Australians. While the rest of us were trying to adapt to a world that suddenly seemed bent on eradicating the human race, the Australians had been dealing with a hostile envi...
When I heard footsteps and saw nobody, I knew I was seeing a ghost. Seeing the invisible is like dreaming about drinking coffee to wake up, and that’s why I’ve never made love in the backseat of a car. I’ve only ever had sex in the trunk, while...
She's not my type,' Carter says. 'So what is your type?' 'Tall, skinny, black hair, blue eyes, freckly nose. Blue tinsel wig and snowflakes optional.' 'Skinny?' I squeal. 'Definitely. Pretending to be shy, sensible and stand-offish when really you're...
Is he well educated?" "Yes, I think so, as far as he's gone," I answered. "Of course he will go on being educated every day of his life, same as father. He says it is all rot about 'finishing' your education. You never do. You learn more important th...
Bean finds the best apple in our tree and hands it up to me. "You know what this tastes like when you first bite into it?" she asks. "No, what?" "Blue sky." "You're zoomed." "You ever eat blue sky?" "No," I admit. "Try it sometime," she says. "It's a...
The sound of the blues, rhythm and blues, country music, is what we lived for, black and white alike. It gave you strength to sit on one of those throbbing Allis-Chalmers tractors all day if you knew you were gonna hear something on the radio or mayb...
The symbolism seemed so apt. The same technology that can propel apocalyptic weapons from continent to continent would enable the first human voyage to another planet. It was a choice of fitting mythic power: to embrace the planet named after, rather...
Love is hard. We try to love one another. But generally the quality and quantity of our love for one another is found wanting, because we find it difficult, if not impossible, to look beyond those things that are ugly and unlovable in those we try to...
I had a dream about you. The blue sky matched the blue in your eyes, though you had a few more clouds in your irises. When you got sad, you didn’t cry—you rained, and that’s why I approached you to try to sell you a nose umbrella, something tha...
But that's life. That's your education. A series of opportunities and missed opportunities. Exams and grades and blue books and blue balls and majors and minors and liberal arts and liberal minds. The scam of it is, no matter how much you paid or how...
Away acrost his valley he sees Black Mountain rising jagged to the sky...and if he looks to the left on past it, he sees all the furtherest ranges, line on line. Purple and blue and blue again and smoky until you can't tell the mountains apart from t...
Herb Brooks: Red line, back. Blue line, back. Far blue line, back. Far red line, back. And you have 45 seconds to do it. Get used to this drill. You'll be doing it *a lot*. Why? Because the legs feed the wolf, gentlemen. I can't promise you we'll be ...
Burton Mercer: [to Trooper Daniel] Hi! Wanna hand me the mike? [Daniel gives him the police radio] Burton Mercer: Thanks a lot. [speaking in radio] Burton Mercer: Hi, this is car um... [to Officer Mount] Burton Mercer: What number are we? Officer Mou...
Jake: [about the electric piano] $2,000 for this chunk of shit? C'mon, Ray. Murph: [tests the piano] I mean really, Ray, it's used. There's no action left in this keyboard. Ray: [smiles, comes out to the piano] E-excuse me, uh, I don't think there's ...
Curtis: Well, the Sister was right. You boys could use a little churching up. Slide on down to the Triple Rock, and catch Rev. Cleophus. You boys listen to what he's got to say. Jake: Curtis, I don't want to listen to no jive-ass preacher talking to ...
Elwood: [during "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love"] People, when you do find that special somebody, you gotta hold that man, hold that woman! Love him, please him, squeeze her, please her! Signify your feelings with every gentle caress, because it's ...
[at the closing, as each character is credited] Reverend Cleophus James: The sad sack was sittin' on a block o' stone/Way over in the corner weepin' all alone/ Curtis: The warden said, "Hey, buddy, don't you be no square / if you can't find a partner...
