I am beginning to be sorry that I ever undertook to write this book. Not that it bores me; I have nothing else to do; indeed, it is a welcome distraction from eternity. But the book is tedious, it smells of the tomb, it has a rigor mortis about it; a...
I wondered why it was that places are so much lovelier when one is alone. How commonplace and stupid it would be if I had a friend now, sitting beside me, someone I had known at school, who would say: “By-the-way, I saw old Hilda the other day. You...
I took ten days off and by 11 o’clock on the first morning I had drunk fourteen cups of coffee, read all the newspapers and the Guardian and then… and then what? By lunchtime I was so bored that I decided to hang a few pictures. So I found a hamm...
How anybody can compose a story by word of mouth face to face with a bored-looking secretary with a notebook is more than I can imagine. Yet many authors think nothing of saying, 'Ready, Miss Spelvin? Take dictation. Quote no comma Sir Jasper Murgatr...
I don't tell you this story today in order to encourage all of you in the class of '04 to find careers in the music business, but rather to suggest what the next decade of your lives is likely to be about, and that is, trying to ensure that you don't...
Susan Griffin describes it as a time when "there is no intrinsic authority to my words." "I...clean off my desk. I make telephone calls. I know I am avoiding the typewriter. I know that in my mind, where there might be words, there is simply a blankn...
As Molly wrapped one of the freshly made flour tortillas around several slices of perfectly cooked steak and piled on guacamole, she began talking. The more she talked, the faster her words came. It was as if she were afraid that someone else would s...
Randal Graves: All right, look, there's only one "Return," okay, and it ain't "of the King," it's "of the Jedi." Hobbit Lover: Oh, Star Wars geek. Randal Graves: Oh, I'm the geek? Look at you two whipping out your preciouses. Elias: You'll have to ex...
Lee Samson: Twentieth century games are really nice. Games nowadays are getting boring. I'm more into old school games like this one. Back then, games like these were enough for everyone. It's the same with hackers. It was better when there were few....
Lady Eboshi: [Ashitaka interrupts the fight] What do you think you're doing, boy? Prince Ashitaka: Stay your hand. The girl's life is now mine. [San viciously bites Ashitaka's arm] Lady Eboshi: I'm sure she'll make a lovely wife for you. Prince Ashit...
Teacher Kitano: Are my classes boring? Noriko Nakagawa: Yes. Teacher Kitano: How dare you! Noriko Nakagawa: [chuckles] Teacher Kitano: I go into class, you guys look like a pile of potatoes. Slapping them around helped me tell them apart, even got to...
Nadya Zelenin and her mother had returned from a performance of Eugene Onegin at the theatre. Going into her room, the girl swiftly threw off her dress and let her hair down. Then she quickly sat at the table in her petticoat and white bodice to writ...
Now and again, one could detect in a childless woman of a certain age the various characteristics of all the children she had never issued. Her body was haunted by the ghost of souls who hadn't lived yet. Premature ghosts. Half-ghosts. X's without Y'...
Really, Sage? A date?" I sighed. "Yes, Adrian. A date." A real date. Not, like, doing homework together," he added. "I mean like where you go out to a movie or something. And a movie that's not part of a school assignment. Or about something boring."...
It’s only sixteen ninety-five," I say with a flutter of my lashes. "You’re serious." I prop my hands on my waist and stick out a hip, striking a pose worthy of a supermodel. "Look at me. Don’t I look serious?" She collapses into the chair outsi...
[first lines] Brent Tarleton: What do we care if we *were* expelled from college, Scarlett? The war is gonna start any day now, so we'd have left college anyhow. Stuart Tarleton: War! Isn't it exciting, Scarlett? You know those fool Yankees actually ...
Eddie Morra: Well, in order for a career to evolve, I'm gonna have to move on. Carl Van Loon: And you would even think that, would only show me how unprepared you are to be on your own. I mean you do know you're a freak? Your deductive powers are a g...
I ask the impossible: love me forever. Love me when all desire is gone. Love me with the single mindedness of a monk. When the world in its entirety, and all that you hold sacred advise you against it: love me still more. When rage fills you and has ...
Top 10 Deathbed Regrets: 1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life other people expected of me. 2. I wish I took time to be with my children more when they were growing up. 3. I wish I had the courage to express my fee...
Eli Sunday: Oh, Daniel... Oh, Daniel... please... I-I-I'm in... I'm in desperate times. Plainview: I know. Eli Sunday: I need a friend. Plainview: Yes, of course you do. Eli Sunday: I've sinned! I need help! I'm a sinner! I've let the Devil grab hold...