The ship's surgeon was a spotty unshaven little man whose clothes, arrayed with smudges, drippings, and cigarette burns, were held about him by an extensive network of knotted string, The buttons down the front of those duck trousers had originally b...
I spent the last Friday of summer vacation spreading hot, sticky tar across the roof of George Washington High. My companions were Dopey, Toothless, and Joe, the brain surgeons in charge of building maintenance. At least they were getting paid. I was...
In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference. We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking. I should not talk so muc...
A Sad Child You're sad because you're sad. It's psychic. It's the age. It's chemical. Go see a shrink or take a pill, or hug your sadness like an eyeless doll you need to sleep. Well, all children are sad but some get over it. Count your blessings. B...
Final Disposition Others divided closets full of mother's things. From the earth, I took her poppies. I wanted those fandango folds of red and black chiffon she doted on, loving the wild and Moorish music of them, coating her tongue with the thin ski...
Hoke Colburn: [Hoke walks in, Boolie and Daisy are there to confront him about a missing can of salmon] Mornin', Miss Daisy. I think it's gettin' ready to clear up out there! Oh, 'scuse me, Mr. Werthan! Boolie Werthan: Hoke, I think we're gonna have ...
Lloyd Dobler: What? I'm sorry I said that. Forget I said it, it's what I thought I meant, but... Diane Court: Lloyd... Lloyd Dobler: ...forget it. Diane Court: [making air quotes] "I love you," okay? Lloyd Dobler: What is that? What are you doing wit...
Wyatt Earp: All right, Clanton... you called down the thunder, well now you've got it! You see that? [pulls open his coat, revealing a badge] Wyatt Earp: It says United States Marshal! Ike Clanton: [terrified, pleading] Wyatt, please, I... Wyatt Earp...
Joe: [waves for Curt to come over] Get down! OK now, you got it? I'm staying here, you're on your own. Curt Henderson: Wait a minute, wait a minute, Joe... wait a minute. What if he hears me? Joe: Shhh. Listen, listen! Look at it this way. Now, you g...
Nina: What are you doing here? Lily: I just came by to apologize. You're right, I should have never spoken to him about you. Erica: [interrupts] Sweetheart. Nina: Give me a second. Erica: Your dinner. Nina: Mom! Please? Lily: Oh, she's a trip. [chuck...
Interesting how fashion is cyclical,” Jaccob said when she came out of the store with two black plastic bags. “Goth was the look when I was young, too.” “It’s not a look,” Chuck said. “I’m just wearing my feelings on the outside.” �...
When my sister was released from the mental hospital, she came to live with me in the tilting and crumbling one-bedroom house I'd bought with the small amount of money I inherited when our parents died. She arrived one afternoon unannounced in a taxi...
Gus is the Cat at the Theatre Door. His name, as I ought to have told you before, Is really Asparagus. That's such a fuss To pronounce, that we usually call him just Gus. His coat's very shabby, he's thin as a rake, And he suffers from palsy that mak...
As the sun shines low and red across the water, I wade into the ocean. The water is still high and brown and murky with the memory of the storm, so if there’s something below it, I won’t know it. But that’s part of this, the not knowing. The su...
[R]eligion was the race's first (and worst) attempt to make sense of reality. It was the best the species could do at a time when we had no concept of physics, chemistry, biology or medicine. We did not know that we lived on a round planet, let alone...
God is the comic shepherd who gets more of a kick out of that one lost sheep once he finds it again than out of the ninety and nine who had the good sense not to get lost in the first place. God is the eccentric host who, when the country-club crowd ...
Frank Bailey: Get this straight, you corn-holin' fucker. You tell your queer-ass nigger bosses that they ain't never gonna find those civil rightsers down here! So you might as well pack up and go back up North where you came from and... [Anderson gr...
[Trapper has just opened a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer] Hawkeye Pierce: I see you are a beer drinker, sir. Would you care for a martini? Trapper John: A martini? Yeah, I'd love a martini. Hawkeye Pierce: [to Ho-Jon] Ho-Jon, get the gentleman a mart...
James Conway O'Donnell: Who are you? Who's paying you? Philip 'Cockeye' Stein: I think this is gonna piss you off, Mac. I think it's those dirty politician friends of yours. James Conway O'Donnell: Yeah? Well, you crawl back and tell 'em we don't wan...
Q: It always makes me feel a bit melancholy. Grand old war ship. being ignominiously haunted away to scrap... The inevitability of time, don't you think? What do you see? James Bond: A bloody big ship. Excuse me. Q: 007. I'm your new Quartermaster. J...
Reed Rothchild: TODD... PARKER! Todd Parker: Rockin' Reed Rothchild! Reed Rothchild: You made it! Woo-Hoo! Todd Parker: Amazing party, man! Fuckin' chicks everywhere! Reed Rothchild: You bet. Compliments of Jack Horner. Thank you. Todd Parker: I woul...
