Here in Bosnia I had already seen several cases of rheumatic fever and a case we thought was miliary tuberculosis, diseases now rare in America. It was sobering to think that the mundane process of vaccinating these children might ultimately save mor...
The shapes inched closer. I gaped at them, trying to discern their features. "I think I see dead people," I whispered. "Yep," Aidan said, smiling. "More vampire jokes. You're just fine, then. Once this is over, you and my brother will be BFFs." He wr...
Witch' is just a religion, okay? No baby-sacrificing, no Black Masses, no sending imps out to scare the dog-snot out of kids, trying to make them think they're crazy. We don't do things like that. Our number-one law is 'Have fun in this lifetime, but...
During his hajj, Malcolm [Malcolm X] fell into a new Islam with the same blind faith that he had given to Elijah. Since he lived just a year after his hajj, Mecca became the neatly presented and cinema-friendly conclusion to his lifelong thread of tr...
I thought about the current contamination of beaches, raw sewage spilling into oceans and streams, the hole in the ozone, forests being stripped, the toxic-waste dumps, the merry plunder of mankind added to the drought and the famine that nature dish...
Which just goes to show, I guess, that dinner parties are like everything else - not as fragile as we think they are.
No,” he agreed. “You’re not. She never caused me this agony.” What could I say to that? The way he was looking at me was making my head feel funny. Was making me feel funny and not just in that oh God I just almost died way. Christophe leaned...
It's amazing the things that the heart and mind can endure. No one ever told me that growing up, so I often spent my childhood thinking something was wrong with me.
Ultimately, I try to think of my application’s main codebase as just stringing together various components and code from many sources. It just controls logic and flow. The real nitty-gritty is handled behind the scenes. This is why frameworks like ...
You probably think that being a guest in your aunt's house I would hesitate to butter you all over the front lawn and dance on the fragments in hobnailed boots, but you are mistaken. It would be a genuine pleasure. By an odd coincidence I brought a p...
I have been thinking ... that the social moulds civilization fits us into have no more relation to our actual shapes than the conventional shapes of the constellations have to the real star-patterns. I am called Mrs. Richard Phillotson, living a calm...
Cora,come on now. You can find a guy in, like, a second flat. Half the guys in the band have you on their laminated list." She rolled her expressive eyes at me. "I want something real, Jet. Something that is life changing and dramatic, something that...
Snow. I wondered what it felt like. Aunt Bernette said it could be both soft and hard, cold and hot. It stung and burned when the wind pelted it through the air, and it was a gentle cold feather when it drifted down in lazy circles from the sky. I co...
Because Oliver wants you, and what Oliver wants, Oliver gets, right? So get your sweet little butt up already.” “Hey,” Shane said, and stood up. “I’m not telling you again, Jase. Stop.” “What, because I said she had a sweet little butt?...
Life is funny sometimes. Of course it isn’t as funny as smashing your brand new Mustang convertible into your house and having your life flash before your eyes. Sitting here in my car in the middle of my den, I can't help but think that things coul...
Can you play the piano like Beethoven? Or sing like Carly Simon? Can you take fie pages' worth of quotes and turn them into a usable story ten minutes before deadline? I don't think so, unless you have more hidden talents I don't know about. We all h...
You’re not a killer, Seirin.” Sweat coated his face, speckled his clothes. “You couldn’t kill Vissyus, and you can’t kill me.” Seirin grinned maliciously. “A woman’s prerogative. I’ve had a very long time to think things over.” Bo...
It was a mistake to think of houses, old houses, as being empty. They were filled with memories, with the faded echoes of voices. Drops of tears, drops of blood, the ring of laughter, the edge of tempers that had ebbed and flowed between the walls, i...
It is ignorance that is at times incomprehensible to the wise; for instance, he may not see 'the positive person' or 'the negative person' in such a black and white way as many people do. A wise man may not understand it because, as a catalyst of wis...
Thus with continued concentration and the expenditure of enormous amounts of energy he tried to keep himself from slipping into the vast distances of his unhappiness. It was all around him. It was a darkness as impudently close as his brow. It choked...
He caught her staring and waggled his eyebrows. Heat flooded her cheeks, and she worked to recover. “The minivan suits you. I think you should get one.” “Sweetheart, I already have to beat the ladies off me with a stick. If I get one of these b...
