Is that all, sir? Only we've got stuff to finish before our knocking-off time, you see, and if we stay late we have to make more money to pay our overtime, and if the lads is a bit tired we ends up earning the money faster'n we can make it, which lea...
America isn't breaking apart at the seams. The American dream isn't dying. Our new racial and ethnic complexion hasn't triggered massive outbreaks of intolerance. Our generations aren't at each other's throats. They're living more interdependently th...
You could use a moth like that as a symbol in a novel, but it was trite, wasn’t it? The old moth-to-the-flame image had been used and used again. It was the stuff of amateur poetry. And she, having so little experience crafting a story, would be th...
I think about something I once heard on the radio. About Abraham and Isaac." "I was afraid you'd say something like that." "You asked." "So what about them? I don't really know much about that kind of stuff." "There was a pastor on the radio who said...
Hell is a library," she said, tightening her fresh knot. "That really doesn't sound bad, Julia." "That's because I'm not finished. Hell is a library of books containing every word you've ever said, and videotapes of everything you've ever done." "So ...
Depression is not dramatic, but it is total. It’s sneaky - you almost don’t notice it at first. Like a cat burglar, it comes in through an open window while you’re sleeping. It takes little things at first; your appetite, your desire to return ...
Imagine going through years of your life with the gut feeling that none of it really matters yet, that it will start at some point in the future, and that the present doesn't really count. Does this feeling seem familiar? Have you ever told yourself ...
Having bad experiences sometimes helps; it makes it clearer what it is you should be doing. I know that sounds very Pollyannaish but it’s true. People who have had only good experiences aren’t very interesting. They may be content, and happy afte...
At the time of Lewis and Clark, setting the prairies on fire was a well-known signal that meant, ‘Come down to the water.’ It was an extravagant gesture, but we can’t do less. If the landscape reveals one certainty, it is that the extravagant g...
A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me will full hands; How could I answer the child?......I do not know what it is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven. There was the hope Dr. ...
Kate opens a jar of honey and pours a thick line of the sticky stuff over the top edge of the wound. Setting the jar back on the counter, she picks up the first strip of cloth and gently wraps it around his arm. As she works, she can feel his eyes on...
Apologizing to me again, thought Miles miserably. For me. He keeps telling me I'm all right—and then apologizing. Inconsistent, Father.He shuffled back and forth across the room again, and his pain burst into speech. He flung his words against the ...
It's like Dungeons and Dragons, but ." Jace was looking at Simon as if he were some bizarre species of insect. "It's like what?" "It's a game," Clary explained. She felt vaguely embarrassed. "People pretend to be wizards and elves, and they kill mons...
I said. “I’m fine. I have a little bit of a head ache, but I’m not dizzy or nauseous. I can walk and talk just fine, and I can remember everything.” “Everything, huh? Don’t self-diagnose, Doctor Fisher. Do you remember when the Battle of ...
Okay, so English settlers brought rabbits with them to Australia to breed for food and stuff, right? But they escaped and basically started destroying the country, eating the vegetation, that kind of thing. So by the early 1900s, the government was t...
Why,' I said, quite surprised by my own eloquence in inventing all this stuff, 'it happens every day. The old old story. Boys and girls fall in love, that is, they are driven mad and go blind and deaf and see each other not as human animals with comi...
So early it's still almost dark out. I'm near the window with coffee, and the usual early morning stuff that passes for thought. When I see the boy and his friend walking up the road to deliver the newspaper. They wear caps and sweaters, and one boy ...
I wouldn’t say “art” as much as “virtue,” in the ancient Greek sense of “andreia” – manly action – or “arete,” excellence. In my experience, Resistance kicks in any time we try to move ourselves from a lower plane to a higher. I...
I once met a woman who'd been in therapy... and it seemed like the big thing she'd learned was to ignore everything she thought in the first hour of the day. That's when the negative stuff will try to bring you down, she said, and she was right about...
In my experience, writers tend to be really good at the inside of their own heads and imaginary people, and a lot less good at the stuff going on outside, which means that quite often if you flirt with us we will completely fail to notice, leaving ev...
Start telling the stories that only you can tell, because there’ll always be better writers than you and there’ll always be smarter writers than you. There will always be people who are much better at doing this or doing that - but you are the on...
