At the end of our visit, Fleisher agreed to play something on my piano, a beautiful old 1894 Bechstein concert grand that I had grown up with, my father's piano. Fleisher sat at the piano and carefully, tenderly, stretched each finger in turn, and th...
How could she have gotten herself here? To this place where she stood by while the man she adored checked out things to share with his wife? You knew what you were getting into. But that wasn’t really true. One never knew, not entirely, not until i...
Friction is necessary. Ease of life leads to complacency and the atrophy of the human will and spirit. Within our struggles lives our strength, within our trials lives our triumphs. Friction creates a platform for change, generates heat and or fervor...
To sum it all up, if you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write every single day of your life. You must write dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let ...
If you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in bea...
The room was two-tiered, its marble balconies filled with rams and water nymphs in fancy dress; a kaleidoscope of colours swayed in time to the beat of hypnotic music. A concerto of absent musicians, it played only in her mind. The numerous chandelie...
Arthur: Move aside! This is the king's road - and the knights you joined arms against were his very own. Lancelot: I await the king himself. His knights are in need of training. Arthur: I am King. And this [draws the sword] Arthur: , is Excalibur, sw...
Mufasa: Simba, I'm very disappointed in you. Young Simba: I know. Mufasa: You could have been killed! You deliberately disobeyed me! And what's worse, you put Nala in danger! Young Simba: I was just trying to be brave like you. Mufasa: Simba, I'm onl...
Estate Agent: That's your sofa, which also doubles up as a bed, which is great, you know, cause you can be watching some telly and you ain't got to hassle having to get outta the bedroom, you can just open it up, get your kip. Kitchen just through th...
Lyle Gorch: All your fancy plannin' and talkin' damn near got us shot to pieces over a few lousy bags of washers. Well, this was goin' to be me and Tector's last job before we quit and headed south. We spent all our time and money a-gettin' ready for...
Professor Charles Xavier: You know, I believe that true focus lies somewhere between rage and serenity. Would you mind if I... [Charles makes a gesture to request permission to read Erik's mind] Erik Lehnsherr: [Erik signals approval and while Charle...
When I started to learn how to read, I discovered the same kind of power. I could create an environment that I didn't have, and I could order this environment in the way that I couldn't in my actual life. Then, when I learned to write, I learned that...
There are young men and women up and down the land who happily (or unhappily) tell anyone who will listen that they don’t have an academic turn of mind, or that they aren’t lucky enough to have been blessed with a good memory, and yet can recite ...
My companions for the afternoon were affable, welcoming middle-aged men in their late thirties and early forties who simply had no conception of the import of the afternoon for the rest of us. To them it was an afternoon out, a fun thing to do on a S...
Ladies, we are at a massive disadvantage in the workplace. Your male peers are flirting with their male bosses constantly. The average workplace is like f*cking Bromancing the Stone. That’s basically what male bonding is. Flirting. They’re flirti...
Apocalyptic saucer cults have started to spring up all over America. One small group, which has been receiving messages from outer space via Lake City housewife Mrs. Marian Keech, becomes the subject of a research team led by psychologist Leon Festin...
This has been the century of strangers, brown, yellow and white. This has been the century of the great immigrant experiment. It is only this late in the day that you can walk into a playground and find Isaac Leung by the fish pond, Danny Rahman in t...
Brian Clough: What are you doing? You weren't supposed to *accept* our resignations! Sam Longson: Shouldn't bloody well offer them, then, should you? Brian Clough: Look, you can't get rid of us. It would be a disaster for the club. For the whole of D...
Coach Boone: Are your parents here? Bertier: There's my mother. Coach Boone: Good. [nods his head at Gerry's mom] Coach Boone: You take a look at her. Cause once you step on that bus you aint got your mama no more. You got your brothers on the team a...
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: Your father pedals car telephones at a 300 percent markup. Your mother works on heavy commission at a camera store. Graduated to it from espresso machines. Hah! [pause] Lt. Col. Frank Slade: What are you, dying of some wasting d...
Within a couple of weeks of starting the Ph.D. program, though, she discovered that she'd booked passage on a sinking ship. There aren't any jobs, the other students informed her; the profession's glutted with tenured old men who won't step aside for...
