I sat down and tried to rest. I could not; though I had been on foot all day, I could not now repose an instant; I was too much excited. A phase of my life was closing tonight, a new one opening tomorrow: impossible to slumber in the interval; I must...
In my room I'd barely closed my eyes when the blonde from the movie house came along and sang her whole song of sorrow just for me. I helped her put me to sleep, so to speak, and succeeded pretty well... I wasn't entirely alone... It's not possible t...
Jake was close to tears. In that moment he saw the world in its true light, as a place where nothing had ever been any good and nothing of significance done: no art worth a second look, no philosophy of the slightest appositeness, no law but served t...
The best of the New Critics were masters of close readings. Cleanth Brooks, for example, in 1937 wrote a detailed commentary on The Waste Land which is still a model of critical helpfulness. The fact that certain basic insights in the past generation...
I think it's that we do not sleep together. You know, for the safety of the world." His eyes sparkled and there was just a hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. "Okay," I said, and smiled back at him. "But kissing is allowed, right?" "Oh, defi...
Flynn?’ Without thinking, she took a small step toward the wolf. Its ears cocked forward at the sound of the name, and it too took a step forward. Then froze. She shook her head. ‘Sorry,’ she whispered. ‘You look like someone I know.’ The w...
People come, people go – they’ll drift in and out of your life, almost like characters in a favorite book. When you finally close the cover, the characters have told their story and you start up again with another book, complete with new characte...
We have a closed circle of consistency here: the laws of physics produce complex systems, and these complex systems lead to consciousness, which then produces mathematics, which can then encode in a succinct and inspiring way the very underlying laws...
As long as a population can be induced to believe in a supernatural hereafter, it can be oppressed and controlled. People will put up with all sorts of tyranny, poverty, and painful treatment if they're convinced that they'll eventually escape to som...
Mathematics is a terrible calling. It’s as merciless as gravity. It swallows the soul. There’s a point near a black hole called the last stable orbit. Once you drop below that radius, no force in the universe can stop you falling all the way in. ...
How could I have ever loved Peg? I love you." And too late, he realized that the words he had just spoken were the truth. He closed his eyes, holding her even more tightly, allowing himself to finally realize and identify his feelings. He was stunned...
People dread silence because it is transparent; like clear water, which reveals every obstacle—the used, the dead, the drowned, silence reveals the cast-off words and thoughts dropped in to obscure its clear stream. And when people stare too close ...
I’d never seen a man cry before, only on TV. I’d never even seen Dad close to crying. Those tears looked so odd on you. It was like the strength of you just seemed to sap away. The surprise of it stopped me from being so scared.
I suppose men, even myself, are perpetually boys. The sons of parents who provide the staples of what makes up a life— a home, an example of what it means to be human, however fucked up that may be. We are molded by impressions and an example, sing...
Here is the secret to surviving one of these [airplane] crashes: Be male. In a 1970 Civil Aeromedical institute study of three crashes involving emergency evacuations, the most prominent factor influencing survival was gender (followed closely by pro...
Why don't you like getting close?' Marianne insisted. 'Is it because you might get hurt?' Owen shook his head. He still couldn't look at her. 'It's because it's never permanent. Everything dies. Everything gets destroyed. Even love. So we just make t...
Simple shifts in points of view can open doors to expansions of consciousness as easily as rigid dispositions can close hearts and minds to such elevated awareness. It generally depends on whether you allow fear and violence to rule your actions or w...
His thought processes imploded when she grabbed his ass, her nails digging in a way that set his body on fire. He loved the way her breath was hot on his cheek, the way her eyes had gone unfocused and fluttered closed, her lashes resting softly on he...
She remembered how it had felt and tasted, that slowly descending depression, like a thick glass jar that closed around you, sucking away the air you needed to breathe, creating a barrier between you and the world. The hell of it was that she'd been ...
Now the twelfth canto of Book II is an almost literal translation from Tasso description in the Jerusalem Delivered of the island of Armida. That poem was not printed till 1582. It is likely enough that Spenser may have seen part of it in manuscript,...
To the untutored sage, the concentration of population was the prolific mother of all evils, moral no less than physical. He argued that food is good, while surfeit kills; that love is good, but lust destroys; and not less dreaded than the pestilence...
