Even if we act to erase material poverty, there is another greater task; it is to confront the poverty of satisfaction – purpose and dignity – that afflicts us all. Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and ...
I can't believe you've been here all day and didn't come visit. ", Tatiana said. "Aw, I figured you had more important things to do than see me, " Adrian told her. "Besides, I quit smoking, so now we won't be able to go sneak cigarettes out behind th...
Don't ever think you're better than a drug addict, because your brain works the same as theirs. You have the same circuits. And drugs would affect your brain in the same way it affects theirs. The same thought process that makes them screw up over an...
Just as we have created a society in which it would be unthinkable to light up a cigarette in the Kennedy Center lobby, we can create a society where it is unthinkable that a child suffers abuse, fails in school, becomes delinquent, or faces teasing ...
I couldn’t go back to my apartment. I was forever estranged from my place of habit – the carpet I would ash my cigarettes on, the gin bathtub where I would soak to keep my weight down and stir my medicines, the couch full of holes from slippery s...
If he closed his eyes he could dwell in the circuit of air that had once held her, he could hold his breath and be inside her again, within the close and burning borders of her- she stood here, washed her hair in this sink, wrote upon this wall, ate ...
I have my superstitions, though. They could be termed quirks. I have to add up all numbers: there are some people I never telephone because their number adds up to an unlucky figure. Or I won’t accept a hotel room for the same reason. I will not to...
Cancer seems a high price to pay for an innocuous-looking habit. You get into smoking and you are robbed of the last 25 years of your life. Some cocky souls will say, 'Ah yes, but they are the worst 25 years.' Nobody feels like that in a cancer ward....
Two years he walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. Escaped from Atlanta. Thou shalt not return, 'cause "the West is the best." And now after two rambli...
Christopher McCandless: Two years he walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. Escaped from Atlanta. Thou shalt not return, 'cause "the West is the best." ...
John McClane: These guys are mostly European judging by their clothing labels and... [long pause] John McClane: cigarettes. They're well-financed and very slick. Sergeant Al Powell: Well, now, how do you know that? John McClane: I've seen enough phon...
Zorg: I hate warriors, too narrow-minded. I'll tell you what I do like though: a killer, a dyed-in-the-wool killer. Cold blooded, clean, methodical and thorough. Now a real killer, when he picked up the ZF-1, would've immediately asked about the litt...
Pete Dunham: [to Bovver] This is Matt, Shannon's brother. Matt Buckner: [Holds his hand out to Bovver] Hey. [Bovver turns his head and smokes his cigarette] Swill: That's the painting on his face, he don't give a fuck, does he? He don't give a fuck. ...
Canadian Guy: Fucking unbelievable. Ray: What's fucking unbelievable? Canadian Guy: Are you talking to me? Ray: [to himself] He pauses, even though he should just hit the cunt, and he repeats [to the Canadian] Ray: Yes, I am talking to you. What's fu...
Latchkey! I mean . . . I want to talk to you . . .' He fell silent, glancing behind him and shifting from foot to foot, his waterproof trousers rattling like the bulls' bladders that boys use to learn swimming. Sterlingov angrily spat out his cigaret...
It would be nice to think that as I've got older times have changed, relationships have become more sophisticated, females less cruel, skins thicker, reactions sharper, instincts more developed. But there still seems to be an element of that evening ...
When I worked in a second-hand bookshop — so easily pictured, if you don't work in one, as a kind of paradise where charming old gentlemen browse eternally among calf-bound folios — the thing that chiefly struck me was the rarity of really bookis...
A totalitarian society which succeeded in perpetuating itself would probably set up a schizophrenic system of thought, in which the laws of common sense held good in everyday life and in certain exact sciences, but could be disregarded by the politic...
My parents say you’re no good, Elijah.” I exhaled and killed the cigarette in the grass. Laughing, Eli’s eyes went to my lips and his hands touched my bare midriff. “Really? And what do you say?” He had brought his lips so close to mine tha...
I'm the idiot box. I'm the TV. I'm the all-seeing eye and the world of the cathode ray. I'm the boob tube. I'm the little shrine the family gathers to adore.' 'You're the television? Or someone in the television?' 'The TV's the altar. I'm what people...
Each day of the week, Kalist indulges himself in a different, secret ritual. On Mondays, he wears cologne. On Tuesdays, he eats meat for lunch. On Wednesdays, he places a bet after work. On Thursdays, he smokes one cigarette (but claims he’s not a ...
