After that hard winter, one could not get enough of the nimble air. Every morning I wakened with a fresh consciousness that winter was over. There were none of the signs of spring for which I used to watch in Virginia, no budding woods or blooming ga...
All literature, highbrow or low, from the Aeneid onward, is fan fiction....Through parody and pastiche, allusion and homage, retelling and reimagining the stories that were told before us and that we have come of age loving--amateurs--we proceed, see...
The future that we want - this is it. This is the future of all the previous thoughts you've ever had about the future. You're in it. You're already in it. What is the purpose of all this living if it's only to get some place else and then when you'r...
In an attempt to help me move on from my failed marriage, my mom set me up with Jesus Freak. In fact, the stoner hadn’t even finished moving out when she told me not to worry, because she already had someone better lined up for me. I was just lonel...
The heat intensified. My emotions were spinning out of control. The euphoria was maddening. Out of pure instinct, I pulled away and leaned against the wall, unable to find enough air to breathe. The more I pulled away, the strong the raw ache inside ...
For me, there isn't some miracle cure, this is my life, or my disease will progress and my life will change focus again, and I'll have another new life. I need C to stay right where he is now because for now, I don't know enough to move from where I ...
Jonathan Drazen," I said, squeezing his hand. "You're a manipulative bastard, a brazen liar, and a sadist. You've brought me to my knees. You've dominated me. You've told me who I am and then challenged me to be it. If you made me strong enough to st...
I regretted what a serious teenager I'd been: There were no posters of pop stars or favorite movies, no girlish collection of photos or corsages. Instead there were paintings of sailboats, proper pastel pastorals, a portrait of Eleanor Roosevelt. The...
I'd encourage [you] to think big and be delusional when setting goals. Yes, delusional. The biggest mistake that I made with my first business was I didn't think big enough. I limited my success by just focusing on a small geographic area and focusin...
Most locals knew who Della Lee was. She waitressed at a greasy spoon called Eat and Run, which was tucked far enough outside the town limits that the ski-crowd tourists didn’t see it. She haunted bars at night. She was probably in her late thirties...
I’d been traveling in Asia long enough to know that monkeys there are nothing like their trombone-playing, tambourine-banging cousins I’d seen on TV as a kid. Free-living Asian primates possess a characteristic I found shocking and confusing the ...
Panic strikes me when I think about a sentence that isn’t given the chance to live because I don’t have a pen in my hand or am not sitting near enough to someone familiar to speak it to. Especially if it’s a particularly good sentence, a senten...
You and I, we must carry on, Gemma. I cannot afford the luxury of love. I must marry well. And now I must look after you. It is my duty." "If you wish to suffer, you do so of your own free will, not on my behalf. Or Father's or Grandmama's or anyone'...
What does it do?" said Loeser. "You feel as if you're being sucked down this fathomless, gloomy tunnel. Or to put it another way, it's as if all the different weights and cares of the world have been lifted from your shoulders to he replaced by a sin...
...I blink back the threat of tears, swiped at my nose and narrowed my eyes. "Listen to me, you two bags of monkey shit, "I yelled. "I am not in a good mood. My car keeps stalling. The day before yesterday I threw up on Joe Morelli. I was called a fa...
Elizabeth's fingers slipped around my arm. She stepped forward, her fangs flashing. My breath caught, but not in fear. Damn Tiffany and her vampire-bite addiction. I shoved the reaction away just in time for Elizabeth's fangs to break skin. Warmth ru...
I had enough of a story churning in my head that combined all the elements of the day—the interview, the concert, the after-party’s private session—when he put his guitar away and asked me if I had ever experimented with homosexuality. Talk abo...
And then they started deleting the protest reviews. That was my line. When they started to stamp out dissent, actually to make it disappear with virtually no excuse for doing so...that’s not neglect. That’s not an overwhelmed person or people try...
What? You don't think I'm perfect?" I can't resist, because he gets so riled whenever I bring it up. "I can run up to thirty miles without stopping. I can jump six feet in the air. There is not a material in this world sharp enough to pierce my skin....
The reason for which Picasso was compelled to resort to signs and allegories should now be clear enough: his utter political helplessness in the face of a historical situation which he set out to record; his titanic effort to confront a particular hi...
You almost have to step outside yourself and look at you as if you were someone else you really care about and really want to protect. Would you let someone take advantage of that person? Would you let someone use that person you really care about? O...
