It felt like an eternity before he gingerly lifted himself from the table and staggered backwards. Glass shards protruded from chest to groin. The guy looked like a bloody porcupine. A cute, tall bloody porcupine. I’m tall too. Five foot ten. But h...
She is a mess, her dress once pulled together long and fresh, now drooping and awkwardly weighted to one side of her head. "What happened? Are you okay?" The women clamor around her. Nick walks out in perfect order and perfect swagger, passing her wi...
So you raise up a few generations of young girls, telling them that they should step to the back of the bus, ingrain that in their psyche, preach it to them from the pulpit, hold up as ideal examples women doing precisely that, and in a few years, yo...
John had written that normal fantasy ("normal" in the T.S. Kuhn sense) was written for the moderately educated class suffering from ennui. It was for folks stuck doing dull, repetitive work, growing old while not getting laid half often or variously ...
John had written that normal fantasy ("normal" in the T.S. Kuhn sense) was written for the moderately educated class from suffering ennui. It was for folks stuck doing dull, repetitive work, growing old while not getting laid half often or variously ...
Political writers argue in regard to the love of liberty with the same philosophy that philosophers do in regard to the state of nature; by the things they see they judge of things very different which they have never seen, and they attribute to men ...
A certain amount of native skill and training can allow many individuals to be fairly successful magicians, achieving a surprisingly high ratio of positive results through sorcery.(...) These outer changes, no matter how dramatic, will not necessaril...
Well, I would tell Danny. I'd probably edit for Josh. That is if there was anything worth editing. “Joshua Roberts, you had better get your butt on the move!” Danny hollered as he walked down the stairs. I was nervously waiting for them to leave ...
Usually I spare myself from the news, because if it’s not propaganda, then it’s one threat or another exaggerated to the point of absurdity, or it’s the tragedy of storm-quake-tsunami, of bigotry and oppression misnamed justice, of hatred passe...
It must be murder to be an aging beauty, a former Tadzio, to see your future as an ignored spectator rushing up to meet you like the hard pavement. What a small sip of gall to be able to time with each passing year the ever-shorter interval in which ...
It makes sense. It's all there. Everything that's beautiful or wise or significant has been written down at some time or other. How can anybody have the gall or the self-satisfaction to ignore all that? Who would want to? You read to feel alive, to b...
Books can be immensely powerful. The ideas in them can change the way people think. Yet it was the Nazis and Stalin's officers who committed terrible crimes, and not Mein Kampf or the Communist Manifesto - and of course, the Manifesto contained many ...
I love books, by the way, way more than movies. Movies tell you what to think. A good book lets you choose a few thoughts for yourself. Movies show you the pink house. A good book tells you there's a pink house and lets you paint some of the finishin...
And then there is that day when all around, all around you hear the dropping of the apples, one by one, from the trees. At first it is one here and one there, and then it is three and then it is four and then nine and twenty, until the apples plumme...
Well, what do you want me to say?' The Doctor was so angry he was almost hovering. 'Well done on marrying the only male nurse not to have a full set of Barbara Streisand records? Why did you pick him, anyway? Were there no flight attendants in your v...
Dogs, lives are short, too short, but you know that going in. You know the pain is coming, you're going to lose a dog, and there's going to be great anguish, so you live fully in the moment with her, never fail to share her joy or delight in her inno...
Darling, You asked me to write you a letter, so I am writing you a letter. I do not know why I am writing you this letter, or what this letter is supposed to be about, but I am writing it nonetheless, because I love you very much and trust that you h...
I love you more. I love you enough to let you go and live your dream." I tilted my head and shrugged. "Don't you see....? I love you more." He smiled softly and I brushed some hair off his forehead. Running the backs of my fingers down his cheek, I w...
She was sad and lost and alone in the dark," Cecil said. "She needed somebody to hold her." "And you think she's going to get tired of that?" "You did," Cecil said. "You shut me right out." "It was your decision, not mine," Dave said. "You are the de...
And this is what living next to a waterfall is like, Safran. Every widow wakes one morning, perhaps after years of pure and unwavering grieving, to realize she slept a good night's sleep, and will be able to eat breakfast, and doesn't hear her husban...
... people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You...
