Gingerbread I knew I had to get out of there before the icing cracked and they discovered that I'm burnt around the edges, doughy in the center, that what they thought was sugar is salt. If I was a good girl, if I could satisfy their cravings, if eve...
No one had told her this would happen, that her girlishness would give way to the solid force of wifehood, motherhood. The choices available were all imperfect. If you chose to be with someone, you often wanted to be alone. If you chose to be alone, ...
The order never varies. Two slices of bread-and-butter each, and China tea. What a hide-bound couple we must seem, clinging to custom because we did so in England. Here, on this clean balcony, white and impersonal with centuries of sun, I think of ha...
In the last generation, this country produced one of the most eminent men of science in the whole world. His name was quite unknown among us while he lived, and it is still unknown. Yet I may say without too great exaggeration that when I heard it me...
His attention caught, her companion raised his eyes from the book which lay open beside him on the table and directed them upon her in a look of aloof enquiry. 'What's that? Did you say something to me, Venetia?' 'Yes, love,' responded his sister che...
For the Jesus Revolutionaries, the answer was clear: Jesus would not be out waging "preventative" wars. Jesus would not be withholding medicine from people who could not afford it. Jesus would not cast stones at people of races, sexual orientatons, o...
I want to kiss you," I say, "but I seem to be holding this cat." Skunk lifts his hand and touches it to the side of my face. His fingers are warm from carrying the hot skillet to the table. He regards me very seriously, and for a moment I wonder if h...
A woman, who considers herself to be mature, has every right to insist certain respectful expectations be met by a man, but not if her behavior is consistently childish, selfish, foolish or disrespectful. Man and woman should strive to bring values t...
This was a great magic. Festin had no more performed it than has any man who in exile or danger longs for the earth and waters of his home, seeing and yearning over the doorsill of his house, the table where he has eaten, the branches outside the win...
The Swedes have coined the term 'management by perkele' to portray the Finnish managerial approach. Instead of collectively pondering all the possible alternatives and letting every member of the staff from the cleaner to the MD voice their views, as...
I have seem even those who have long since abjured God die in grace. . . . Atheists don't use their drying to bargain for a better seat at the table; indeed they may not even believe supper is being served. They are not storing up 'merit.'; They just...
Because she hides. She doesn't realize it, I don't think, but she hides. Sometimes right in front of you. She can be sitting across from you at a table in a nice dining room somewhere and the expression on her face changes suddenly and she disappears...
Outside, the sunlight had turned pale lemon, but the studio remained cool. The white walls and white-tiled splashback behind the sink were made more clinical by the metal tables which looked as if they’d originally been intended for use in an opera...
In that memorable year, 1822: , a Danish physicist, held in his hands a piece of copper wire, joined by its extremities to the two poles of a Volta pile. On his table was a magnetized needle on its pivot, and he suddenly saw (by chance you will say, ...
I recognized the great monument from the illustration in the copy of /The Jungle Book/ that my mother kept in the top drawer of my bedside table. When I went with Sophia to the Taj Mahal for the first time, I was not as enchanted by the real mausoleu...
Whereas once medieval Europe had adhered to a common Catholic religion, a common Latin language, and common well-spiced cuisine (at least, for the elite), the balkanization of the Christian world along national lines now meant that nations could no l...
But playing your music as loud as you want and coming home drunk aren't real life. Real life, it turns out, is diapers and lawnmowers, decks that need painting, a wife that needs to be listened to, kids that need to be taught right from wrong, a chec...
Laura n'a jamais dissimulé ni différé le moindre de ses sentiments. Si Laura aime quelqu'un, elle l'embrasse, si Laura boit, elle est ivre, et elle le dit, si elle s'emmerde, elle quitte la table au milieu du repas, en disant qu'elle s'emmerde, et...
It's promising and seductive, that huge Italian family, sitting around the dinner table, surrounded by olive trees. But it's not my family and I am not their family, and no amount of birthing sons, and cooking dinner and raking leaves or planting the...
If they’d caused you pain, I’d never have been able to live with myself,” he said as he backed up a step. “You might want to find another place to sit. Those idiots could cook up a plan for revenge.” “I can’t leave.” Green Eyes took a...
Skulduggery placed both hands on the table and leaned over. "You've heard about me. You've heard about the things I've done." The smirk faded a little. "So?" "So the stories you've heard are nothing compared to the truth, and the truth is nothing com...