He read the letter again, but could not take in any more meaning than he had done the first time and was reduced to staring at the handwriting itself. She had made her g's the same way he did : he searched through the letter for every one of them, an...
It was a hideous ancient thing that stood on tiger feet in the middle of the floor. Like a showpiece. And he did enjoy showing it. He would bring his friends upstairs to the master bathroom so that they could admire the monstrosity while he told them...
If only, I thought, I could talk to Eugene just one more time. This was before I came to understand that you cannot make someone fall in love with you But here's what you can do. By arguing and pleading and screaming and crying and throwing plates an...
Sitti knows that modern-day wars are fought over simple things, like the length and fit of a shirt—the shorter the sleeve, the greater the misfortune. Many times she wants to ask the one-hundred-year-old fig tree in the village center what it is li...
Raymond continued circling me, and I looked back at him. “Anyway, I know Lilith hates your guts, and she would have killed you yesterday if you hadn’t managed to escape.” He stopped and stepped closer, I didn’t back away. His gaze traveled th...
The snag in this business of falling in love, aged relative, is that the parties of the first part so often get mixed up with the wrong parties of the second part, robbed of their cooler judgement by the party of the second part's glamour. Put it lik...
He knew what he had found here, a precious treasure that had remained hidden away for so long. To the right man, she could give more happiness and fulfilment than any amount of gold, or gems. Just by holding her in his arms, he knew this. He had the ...
A brick could have been used as a father figure in place of my dad when I was growing up, because a brick may be dumb, but at least it isn’t dumb and interfering in its absence. By not being a part of my life, my dad became a big part of my life, b...
No man as godly as George, the only fault he finds with God is that he made folk with too few orifices. If George could meet a woman with a quinny under her armpit, he would call out 'Glory be' and set her up in a house and visit her every day, until...
I'm going to make it very hard. I love you and I'm tired of being told what I should want and what I should do. You and I got married and I can stomp my foot and scream and rail at you because of the deal you made with my father, but the truth is I w...
Like a forest rose the huge peaks above the slumbering village, measuring the night and heavens. They beckoned him. And something born of the snowy desolation, born of the midnight and silent grandeur, born of the great listening hollows of the night...
What would happen if, once back home, I stayed open to possibilities rather than attach to specific outcomes? What if I dreaded no potential storms? Ruminated over no past transgression? I knew how. For decades the reflex kicked in with each plane ri...
Men have dragged us by our hair through the ages, and whether they give us crumbs or bright, shiny rocks, they truly give us nothing at all. If you have not opened your legs for them so that they could drawl out as babies or crawl in as men, they the...
We could call you an ambisexual. A duosexual. A—” “Do I really have to find a word for it?” Kyle interrupts. “Can’t it just be what it is?” “Of course,” I say, even though in the bigger world I’m not so sure. The world loves stupi...
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...
I am sometimes asked, "How do you know there won't be a war tomorrow (or a genocide, or an act of terrorism) that will refute your whole thesis?" The question misses the point of this book. The point is not that we have entered an Age of Aquarius in ...
You’re sorry? I damn near drank myself to death, I could barely get out of bed, I shattered my phone into a million pieces on New Year’s Eve to keep from calling you … and you’re sorry?” I bit my lip and nodded, ashamed. I had no idea what ...
I've grown up with an ethic, call it a part, that insists I hide my pain at all costs. As I talk, I feel this pain leaking out—not just the core symptom of BPD, but all the years of being blamed or ignores for my condition, and all the years I've b...
Perhaps the most extraordinary popular delusion about violence of the past quarter-century is that it is caused by low self-esteem. That theory has been endorsed by dozens of prominent experts, has inspired school programs designed to get kids to fee...
Oh, Coral, Coral,” he murmured, his one almost reproachful, but still he did not make any attempt to cross the space between them. Unspoken words and unfulfilled gestures trembled in the air. In the flickering light of the fire, his bronze skin glo...
Rafe had sat back in his chair so his face was in the shadow, but she knew he was watching her through half-closed eyes. When he leaned forward, the fire from the candles flickered, throwing shadows on the planes of his face. She could see his eyes c...
