My kinfolks thought more about character than about culture. They said culture could be acquired but character had to be formed. Character had to be hammered into shape like hot iron on an anvil. It had to be molded in the most exact and unrelenting ...
It was unfair that people could pretend to be one thing when they were really something else. That they would get you on their side and then do nothing but fail, and fail, and fail again. People should come with warnings, like cigarette packs: involv...
He was lonely. I could see that. He was working his butt off-and mine, too-in the hope that a million rupees might sort out his sex life. I prayed to Buddha he would be successful. If he didn't get some action soon, I doubted I would, either.
They were so ignorant! Young men and women, educated very carefully to be apolitical, to be technicians who thought they disliked politics, making them putty in the hands of their rulers, just like always. It was appalling how stupid they were, reall...
I have learned to accept that, in the present moment at least, things are exactly as they are meant to be, and although I cannot control the future any more than I could control the wind and the weather, I can manage it and influence it in a positive...
We are living in the era of premeditation and the perfect crime. Our criminals are no longer helpless children who could plead love as their excuse. On the contrary, they are adults and the have the perfect alibi: philosophy, which can be used for an...
You should totally get implants," she said admiringly in the mirror. I shake my head. "I don't yet know what I'm going to do with my life, Diane. But I'm hoping being shaped like a barbell could only be a hindrance.
Strong hands slipped over her shoulders as Alex joined us, standing so close, I could feel his body heat radiating up my back….He squeezed my shoulders a little hard for it to be a show of solidarity. I’d probably have bruises. He was marking his...
I know what you're up to." "I doubt that." Hayes leaned toward her, his hand looping around the back of McKenzie's neck as he gently drew her to him. "Because if you could see what I was up to, then you'd know I was about to kiss you.
It’s not that we have to quit this life one day, but it’s how many things we have to quit all at once: music, laughter, the physics of falling leaves, automobiles, holding hands, the scent of rain, the concept of subway trains... if only one coul...
Without looking at him, Sera could feel Andrew brooding and watching her. Something was about to happen, is happening. She was bothered by his lips, his cheeks, his nose. Bothered by the veins on his arms, by the way his skin might feel. Bothered by ...
Demalion, we’re alive.’ Pantera’s voice was unusually clipped, as if his patience had finally run to an end. ‘If we were trying to get ourselves killed, we three would have managed it, I think. Two officers of the Fifth and a spy trained by S...
But, new soldier that I was, I understood at last what Cadus had been trying to tell me all along: that life and love and rank were not enough. To be whole in myself, I needed honour, and I had lost it, and could see no way to get it back.
Lawford had soundlessly stolen a pace or two nearer, and by stopping forward he could, each in turn, scrutinize the little intent company sitting over his story around the lamp at the further end of the table; squatting like little children with thei...
He wants to get back together," she finished. "And you said...?" he tried to keep his tone disinterested. "I haven't said anything," she said. "You interrupted me before I could answer him." He congratulated himself on his excellent timing.
Ask any child who failed to live up to his parents’ idea of success, and you’ll likely hear that they never felt good enough, or that their parents had expectations that they could not live up to.
No, solitude did not trouble her. She could spend long minutes gazing out the window, hours listening to the BBC on the public radio station. She relished the very texture of her privacy, its depth of space and freedom, much of an entire day hers alo...
I feel like I’m going to die,’ he says. ‘Could we talk for a few minutes before you die?’ ‘Only if you do it quietly.’ ‘I met this girl last night. I need your advice.’ ‘Come back later.’ ‘No. You might be dead.
Faith seems to grab people and not let go, but hope is a double-crosser. It can beat it on you anytime; it's your job to dig in your heels and hang on. Must be nice to have hope in your pocket, like loose change you could jingle through your fingers.
Max never intended to be messy with his writing, which he could read just fine, years later if necessary, even if his teachers couldn’t. He merely found that his active mind tended to move too fast for his hand to keep up with.
Jasmine believes in a prophecy that says she is destined to love a man named Josh Toby. Okay, fine. He could believe that. Hell, he had friends who believed carbohydrates were the work of the devil. True love made sense at least.
