Reading Aloud to My Father I chose the book haphazard from the shelf, but with Nabokov's first sentence I knew it wasn't the thing to read to a dying man: The cradle rocks above an abyss, it began, and common sense tells us that our existence is but ...
Middle children weep longer than their brothers and sisters. Over her mother’s shoulder, stilling her pains and her injured pride, Jackie Lacon watched the party leave. First, two men she had not seen before: one tall, one short and dark. They drov...
God is the comic shepherd who gets more of a kick out of that one lost sheep once he finds it again than out of the ninety and nine who had the good sense not to get lost in the first place. God is the eccentric host who, when the country-club crowd ...
I don’t want to be a widow, I don’t want Michael Bayning, and I don’t want you to joke about such things, you tactless clodpole!” As all three of them stared at her openmouthed, Poppy leapt up and stalked away, her hands drawn into fists. Bew...
VISIONS OF GRANDEUR I'm walking through a sheet of glass instead of the door, Flying over a giant candlestick lighting up Central Park, Repeating two courses at Hard Knock's College, And swimming through the Red Sea with silky jelly fish. I'm hopping...
Okay," Christian said with a great show at maintaining his patience. "So you can't dance. But you could at least talk to the woman." Julius frowned and avoided his gaze. "I am talking." "You aren't," Christian insisted. "You haven't said more than a ...
The houses have been condemned on Memory Lane I’m tired of this struggle that leaves everything the same I’ve tried so hard to make it work that I’m dying inside Well, you can take my past But you can’t have my tomorrow Promises that remain p...
It hadn't occurred to me that my mother would die. Until she was dying, the thought had never entered my mind. She was monolithic and insurmountable, the keeper of my life. She would grow old and still work in the garden. This image was fixed in my m...
At the edge of the still, dark pool that was the sea, at the brimming edge of freedom where no boat was to be seen, she spoke the first words of the few they were to exchange. ‘I cannot swim. You know it?” In the dark she saw the flash of his smi...
Janna knew - Rikki knew — and I knew, too — that becoming Dr Cameron West wouldn't make me feel a damn bit better about myself than I did about being Citizen West. Citizen West, Citizen Kane, Sugar Ray Robinson, Robinson Crusoe, Robinson miso, mi...
When I first read Lovecraft around 1971, and even more so when I began to read about his life, I immediately knew that I wanted to write horror stories. I had read Arthur Machen before I read Lovecraft, and I didn’t have that reaction at all. It wa...
One day, the old wise Socrates walks down the streets, when all of the sudden a man runs up to him "Socrates I have to tell you something about your friend who..." "Hold up" Socrates interrupts him "About the story you're about to tell me, did you pu...
Growing up means learning what life is. When you're little, you have a set of ideals, standards, criteria, plans, outlooks, and you think that you have to sit around and wait for them to happen to you and then life will work. But life isn't like that...
My sister Emily first declined. The details of her illness are deep-branded in my memory, but to dwell on them, either in thought or narrative, is not in my power. Never in all her life had she lingered over any task that lay before her, and she did ...
Police radio voice unit F-7: [voice] F-7 to Central. The Crumps are locked in a hardware store basement. Should I let them out? Over. Capt. T.G. Culpeper: How the hell could they get themselves locked in a basement? We gotta let them out. Police serg...
Mowgli: [to King Louie] What do you want me for? King Louie: Word has grabbed my royal ear... Have a banana. [he pops a banana neatly out of its skin and into Mowgli's mouth] King Louie: ... that you want to stay in the jungle. Mowgli: [his mouth ful...
Leah: Yo Yo Yiggady Yo. Juno MacGuff: I'm at suicide risk. Leah: Juno? Juno MacGuff: No, it's Morgan Freeman. Do you have any bones that need collecting? Leah: Only the one in my pants... Juno MacGuff: I'm pregnant. Leah: What? Honest to blog? Juno M...
Becky: [on the roof about to teach Dante how to dance] Hey, Twelve-Step! [Jay looks around confused] Becky: Jay! Jay: [looks up] Lord? Becky: Up here, jackass. Jay: [moves so he can see her] What the fuck are you doing up there? Yo, if you're gonna j...
[first lines] Lee: Teacher? Shaolin Abbott: I see your talents have gone beyond the mere physical level. Your skills are now at the point of spiritual insight. I have several questions. What is the highest technique you hope to achieve ? Lee: To have...
[first lines] Brian Taylor: I am the police, and I'm here to arrest you. You've broken the law. I did not write the law. I may even disagree with the law but I will enforce it. No matter how you plead, cajole, beg or attempt to stir my sympathies, no...
[first lines] Brent Tarleton: What do we care if we *were* expelled from college, Scarlett? The war is gonna start any day now, so we'd have left college anyhow. Stuart Tarleton: War! Isn't it exciting, Scarlett? You know those fool Yankees actually ...
