[first lines] Mulligan: All right, Charlie; that the joint? Toothpick Charlie: Yes, sir. Mulligan: Who runs it? Toothpick Charlie: I already told you. Mulligan: Refresh my memory. Toothpick Charlie: Spats Columbo. Mulligan: That's very refreshing; wh...
Tiffany: You know what, forget I offered to help you. Forget the entire fucking idea, because that must have been fucking crazy, because I'm so much CRAZIER than you! Pat: [Indifferent] Keep your voice down. Tiffany: I'm just the crazy slut with a de...
Damiel: First, I'll have a bath. Then I'll be shaved by a Turkish barber who will massage me down to the fingertips. Then I'll buy a newspaper and read it from headlines to horoscope. On the first day, I'll be waited upon... For requests, ask the nei...
Machine Class Professor: Why are you back? Rancho: Sir, I forgot to take something... Machine Class Professor: What? Rancho: Instruments that record, analyse, summarise, organise, debate and explain information; that are illustrated, non-illustrated,...
Neighbor: You're not watching the soldiers, Joseph? Joseph: We've seen Romans before. Neighbor: Yes. And we will see them again. [the neighbor examines some boards which have not been assembled] Neighbor: My table is not finished. Where is your son? ...
The Celt, and his cromlechs, and his pillar-stones, these will not change much – indeed, it is doubtful if anybody at all changes at any time. In spite of hosts of deniers, and asserters, and wise-men, and professors, the majority still are adverse...
I bring this up because in writing some thoughts about a father, or not having a father, I feel as though I'm writing a book about a troll under a bridge or a dragon. For me, a father was nothing more than a character in a fairy tale. I know fathers ...
She did understand, or at least she understood that she was supposed to understand. She understood, and said nothing about it, and prayed for the power to forgive, and did forgive. But he can't have found living with her forgiveness all that easy. Br...
Loving Sarah was like reading a particularly good book. That pressing and overwhelming need to just devour it as fast as possible is matched only by the need to savour it slowly and completely, lest all come to an end too soon. The all-consuming emot...
It frightens me that I can't do anything sensible about it." "Are you scared that you'll wind up with a boring job where you have to see the same people every day and drink instant coffee?" "I'm more scared that I'll forget the feeling I have now." "...
Okay. When he comes, you can see him?" "Yes. I can hear him, too. And he, uh..." She brushed the bandage on the side of her skull. I looked at her in bewilderment. Was she serious? "He hits you?" "Yes." "With his fist?" "Yes." John looked up from his...
I loved Duncan and I loved being his mother but I wasn't sure I was prepared to be only his mother. Before we were even married, when Russell and I had gotten our dog, Humbert, I had walked him early one morning, and as I stood on a line for coffee, ...
And I'll have you know that if you hurt my son again, if he so much as sighs sadly over his coffee, I will hire a man, a Russian, probably, to hunt you down and rip all that shiny black hair from your head, then break your skinny arms and legs, and s...
North Korea is a famine state. In the fields, you can see people picking up loose grains of rice and kernels of corn, gleaning every scrap. They look pinched and exhausted. In the few, dingy restaurants in the city, and even in the few modern hotels,...
Heaven, such as it is, is right here on earth. Behold: my revelation: I stand at the door in the morning, and lo, there is a newspaper, in sight like unto an emerald. And holy, holy, holy is the coffee, which was, and is, and is to come. And hark, I ...
Her eyes widened. I assumed in alarm, but who the hell knew what was going on in her stubborn head. I took the coffee cup from her hand and rested it on the grass next to mine. I leaned in toward her slowly. Her eyes remained steady on mine. Just as ...
...As the evening wore on (the supper did not end until seven in the morning), the public were admitted to watch the festivities from the balustrade, and were offered biscuits and refreshments to keep them going through the night. ...One of the lawye...
The lady who works in the grocery store at the corner of my block is called Denise, and she's one of America's great unpublished novelists. Over the years she's written forty-two romantic novels, none of which have ever reached the bookstores. I, how...
It's a funny thing about Americans, we love to bitch about paying too much for the things we really need and are really a bargain, like gas and postage stamps, but we willingly shell out outrageous amounts for unnecessary crap like gourmet coffee and...
The seasonal urge is strong in poets. Milton wrote chiefly in winter. Keats looked for spring to wake him up (as it did in the miraculous months of April and May, 1819). Burns chose autumn. Longfellow liked the month of September. Shelley flourished ...
So early it's still almost dark out. I'm near the window with coffee, and the usual early morning stuff that passes for thought. When I see the boy and his friend walking up the road to deliver the newspaper. They wear caps and sweaters, and one boy ...
