I have closed my study door on the world and shut myself away with people of my imagination. For nearly sixty years I have eavesdropped with impunity on the lives of people who do not exist. I have peeped shamelessly into hearts and bathroom closets....
Christian hope frees us to act hopefully in the world. It enables us to act humbly and patiently, tackling visible injustices in the world around us without needing to be assured that our skill and our effort will somehow rid the world of injustice a...
Let me guess, Jessie. You ran across some poor woman in the park who had the misfortune of wearing a gown that clashed with yours, so you slit her throat with that clever little parasol of yours. Do I have it right?” Jessamine bared her teeth at hi...
Will looked at him curiously. “Do you think you will see me again?” At the change in Jem’s expression, he added, “I mean, is there a chance for me? To have another life after this, a better one?” As Jem opened his mouth to answer, a rustlin...
Isabelle took out her invitation and waved it like a white flag. "I have an invitation. These"—she indicated the rest of the group with a grand wave of her arm—"are my friends." Magnus plucked the invitation out of her hand and looked at it with ...
In the violent scorn of her revolted pride, of her indignant honor, had she forgotten a lowlier yet harder duty left undone? In her contempt and dread of yielding to mere amorous weakness had she stifled and denied the cry of pity, the cry of conscie...
The witch-hunt narrative is a really popular story that goes like this: Lots of people were falsely convicted of child sexual abuse in the 1980s and early 1990s. And they were all victims of a witch-hunt. It just doesn’t happen to line up with the ...
He dropped his voice, so low that Tessa wasn’t sure if what he said next was real or part of the dream darkness rising to claim her, though she fought against it. “I’ve never minded it,” he went on. “Being lost, that is. I had always though...
And one day when you wake up, you happen to realise that your battle isn’t with the man you had got into a brawl with the other day, it isn’t with a friend turned foe, it isn’t with those parents who chose to give up on you, it isn’t with the...
Only a woman can carry in her body an eternal being which bears the very image of God. Only she is the recipient of the miracle of life. Only a woman can conceive and nurture this life using her own flesh and blood, and then deliver a living soul int...
Katharine Clifton: This - what is this? Almásy: It's a folk song. Katharine Clifton: Arabic. Almásy: No, no. It's Hungarian. My daijka sang it to me when I was a child growing up in Budapest. Katharine Clifton: It's beautiful. What's it about? Alm�...
Sarah: Once upon a time, there was a beautiful young girl whose stepmother always made her stay home with the baby. And the baby was a spoiled child, and wanted everything to himself, and the young girl was practically a slave. But what no one knew i...
Javert: Now Prisoner 24601, your time is up and your parole's begun. You know what that means? Jean Valjean: Yes, it means I'm free. Javert: No. [hands him a yellow paper] Javert: Follow to the letter your itinerary, this badge of shame you wear unti...
Christian Szell: The gun had blanks, the knife, a retractable blade. Hardly original, but effective enough. I think you'll agree. I'm told you are a graduate student. Brilliant, yes? You are an historian, and I am part of history. I should have thoug...
Big Ju: What you doin' man? Louie Lastik: Eatin' lunch. Big Ju: I see you eatin' lunch, but why you eatin' over here? Why not go eat over there and eat with your people? Louie Lastik: Man, I don't have any people. I'm with everybody, Julius. Petey Jo...
[demonstrating a "V-Chip" planted into Cartman] Dr. Vosknocker: Now, I want you to say "doggy". Cartman: Doggy. Dr. Vosknocker: [to audience] Notice, that nothing happens. [to Cartman] Dr. Vosknocker: Now, say "Montana". Cartman: Montana. Dr. Vosknoc...
Rocco: Anybody *you* think is evil? Connor: Aye. Rocco: Don't you think that's a little weird, a little psycho? Connor: D'you know what I think is psycho, Roc? It's decent men with loving families. They go home every day after work and they turn on t...
It is also more than likely that women invented that most fundamental of all material technologies, without which civilization could not have evolved: the domestication of plants and animals. In fact, even though this is hardly ever mentioned in the ...
I know you don't love me that way. Don't you think I know that by now? But you know how I feel about you. No one does." "Tell me, then." "Day, you mean more to me than some crush. When the entire world turned its back on me and left me to die, you to...
Evan Connell said once that he knew he was finished with a short story when he found himself going through it and taking out commas and then going through the story again and putting the commas back in the same places. I like that way of working on s...
The people they had been last summer, the person she had been--Dicey guessed she'd never be afraid again, not the way she had been all summer. She had taken care of them all, sometimes well, sometimes badly. And they had covered the distances. For mo...
