Oh, she was okay, just tired, tired of trying to be the one you wanted, the one you couldn't live without, the one you found yourself reaching out an arm for as she teetered from crisis to crisis to crisis only to collapse in your bed at the end of t...
Mr. de Pinto, the dog who protects sheep quickly learns how to direct them, and it becomes a habit. The people have been trained by their 'watchmen' to jump, and to trample what the 'watchmen' want trampled. "I have found, that those who would guard ...
Aw, come on, admit it—you feel like Cinderella, don’t you?” “No, Darren, I don’t. And do you know why?” “No, sugar, you tell me why.” “Because I’m a man. I’ve got a big fat one and I like to fuck other guys.” Darren was laughi...
Early youth is a baffling time. The present moment is nice but it does not last. Living in it is like waiting in a junction town for the morning limited; the junction may be interesting but some day you will have to leave it and you do not know where...
If God is the Creator, if God englobes every single thing in the universe, then God is everything, and everything is God. God is the earth and the sky, and the tree planted in the earth under the sky, and the bird in the tree, and the worm in the bea...
Y That perfect letter. The wishbone, fork in the road, empty wineglass. The question we ask over and over. Why? Me with my arms outstretched, feet in first position. The chromosome half of us don't have. Second to last in the alphabet: almost there. ...
He meant everything he said, when he said it. But this is his default. And it won out. Right now you're depressed about one thing. Before you were depressed about everything. These are good times for you." "I'm afraid of loving again. I'm afraid I've...
A contemporary Catholic opponent of Martin Luther complained, "Even tailors and shoe-makers – even women and ignorant persons, who could read but little – studied it (the German Bible) with the greatest avidity as the fountain of truth. Some comm...
That's what a man is supposed to do for his wife. Listen, if a nigger didn't get lynched every now and then, well, there's just no telling what they'd do to us." "Who?" Lily asked. "Why, honey, the niggers and our husbands both. I don't care what col...
In my defense, I love the book in a postmodern kind of way where I've always sensed that it contains something that I relate to. I think it's the kind of book that echoes my beliefs and my sentiments and I've always related well to people who have re...
All zoos, even the most enlightened, are built upon the idea both beguiling and repellent—the notion that we can seek out the wildness of the world and behold its beauty, but that we must first contain that wildness. Zoos argue that they are fighti...
Shark!" I yelled as my feet hit the wet sand. "There's a shark out there! Everyone get out of the water!" Man, you want to see humans move fast? Scream that on a crowded beach and watch what happens. Its amazing the fear people have for a scaly, shar...
Those eyes. I felt like they pierced right through me; that if I didn't break away now, they would peel me open to see what lay beneath. Deep within, the dragon stirred, growling. She didn't like this human, I realized. Maybe he scared her, or the in...
Beauvoir was quiet, watching the Chief, taking in the gleam in his eye, the enthusiasm as he described what he'd found. Not the physical landscape, but the emotional. The intellectual. Many might have thought the Chief Inspector was a hunter. He trac...
Are you going to give a speech?' she asked gaily. He gave a choked laugh. 'Of course not,' he said. 'Not for ages.' 'My cousin Davey gave one on his very first day!' ... 'In the Lords, I remember. It was about how he didn't like strawberry jam.' 'Be ...
The routines of almost all famous writers, from Charles Darwin to John Grisham, similarly emphasise specific starting times, or number of hours worked, or words written. Such rituals provide a structure to work in, whether or not the feeling of motiv...
Recordaba con precisión cada una de las cosas que me había dicho y de un «espero que nos veamos pronto» sacaba la certidumbre de que él sufría mi ausencia tanto como yo la suya y que se pasaba los días contando el tiempo que le faltaba para ve...
It was difficult to imagine that a full day hadn't yet passed since we boarded the airliner in New York. I paused. Medieval man believed that one was placed beyond the touch of time, and therefore aging, while attending Mass. What, I wondered, would ...
The fatal misconception behind brainstorming is that there is a particular script we should all follow in group interactions.... [W]hen the composition of the group is right—enough people with different perspectives running into one another in unpr...
[Obituary of atheist philosopher Richard Robinson] An Atheist's Values is one of the best short accounts of liberalism (a term Robinson accepted) and humanism (a term he ignored) produced during the present century, all the more powerful for its luci...
Americans may say they love our accents (I have been accused of sounding 'like Princess Di') but the more thoughtful ones resent and rather dislike us as a nation and people, as friends of mine have found out by being on the edge of conversations whe...
