Our relations seemed poor to me, and I wasn't surprised that the US intelligence picture in the Horn of Africa was weak. Much of what I read consisted of recycled news headlines repackaged as intelligence. Real, valuable intelligence only came from r...
Shanna, sweet Shanna. How can I tell you what you mean to me? When I saw you at the ball it was as if my heart started beating again. You lit up the room, bright in an ocean of black and white. And I thought- my life has been nothing but a dark, endl...
When I left Merle was wearing a bungalow apron and rolling pie crust. She came to the door wiping her hands on the apron and kissed me on the mouth and began to cry and ran back into the house, leaving the doorway empty [...] I had a funny feeling as...
Then as we passed down this Passage we were knocked against certain Women of the Town, who gave us Eye-language, since there were many Corners and Closets in Bedlam where they would stop and wait for Custom: indeed it was known as a sure Market for L...
I’d spend hours in HMVs, Virgin Megastores and second-hand record shops staffed by greasy-haired 40-year-olds dressed as 20-year-olds, listening to contemporary music of every genre – Britrock, heavy maiden, gang rap, brakebeat. And I came to a s...
On election days, the burdens of poverty and corruption and of a creaky economic system are put aside, and India celebrates. Many voters dress especially for the occasion... None quite voice the thought, but those who came in a steady stream to vote ...
Well," said Ash, and she got out of her own bed and came to sit beside Jules. "I've always sort of felt that you prepare yourself over the course of your whole life for the big moments, you know? But when they happen, you sometimes feel totally unrea...
Between the wrinkles of age and her features which indicated a number of years resided a beauty that was touching and awakened trust. Since by now I had observed many faces quite closely in order to sketch them, I fully realized that it was more than...
Do you see the slightest evidence anywhere in the universe that creation came to an end with the birth of man? Do you see the slightest evidence anywhere out there that man was the climax toward which creation had been straining from the beginning? ....
Do you ever hide books you've read over and over again because you're so sick of them?' 'Oh, definitely. When they ask for them, I say the book fairy came to get it. One time they saw one of the books at the library, so now they think the librarians ...
Robert Neville looked out over the new people of the earth. He knew he did not belong to them; he knew that, like the vampires, he was anathema and black terror to be destroyed. And, abruptly, the concept came, amusing to him even in his pain. ... Fu...
If we did have a child, and he came to you with something like this, would you tell him to take the money, to take the job that didn’t mean anything? Why am I even asking, I know what you’d say. You’d tell him to do the thing he loved, the thin...
It was raining when Amarelle Parathis went out just after sunset to find a drink, and there was strange magic in the rain. It came down in pale lavenders and coppers and reds, soft lines like liquid dusk that turned luminescent mist on the warm pavem...
Eventually it became clear that our emotions, attitudes, and thoughts profoundly affect our bodies, sometimes to the degree of life or death. Soon mind-body effects were recognized to have positive as well as negative impacts on the body. This realiz...
The camp fell silent, each group staring tensely at the other. Finally Marcus stepped forward. ''If you insist on going through me to get to him, it's your call. But I warn you, I will probably cry when you hurt me, and you'll feel bad about it later...
None of them were easy or soft or simple. They were like me, nursing hurts and hidden wounds, all broken in different ways. We didn't quite fit together. We had edges so jagged we cut each other sometimes . . . I felt a rush of gratitude so sweet it ...
I was camped at the same site as her: Broughton Farm. She came over to my tent and showed me her blisters. She asked me whether I knew the reason why a blister can keep on producing fluid ad infinitum. I said that I had always wondered the same thing...
Recovering is a process of coming to experience a sense of self. More precisely, it is a process of learning to sense one's self, to attune to one's subjective physical, psychic, and social self- experience. These woman's core sense of shame and thei...
Don't touch her," he growled. There was a note in his voice that would of scared me if it had been directed toward me. He shoved me behind him, putting his body protectively in front of mine with my back to the table. Guardians came at us from all di...
I wanted to throw off the chains that bound me and give my entire being to someone. I wanted to know what it felt like to love another so much that the whole world came crashing down around me when it ended. I wanted obsession. I wanted madness. I wa...
I had come to discover that "safe" was an illusion, a pretense that adults wrapped around their children- and sometimes themselves- to make the world seem comfortable. I had discovered that under that thin cover of let's-pretend, monsters and nightma...
