You don’t say, “I’m sorry,”’ he says. ‘Getting injections, and experiencing pain, is part of life. There’s no reason to apologize for that.’ He seems to be channelling Rousseau, who said, ‘If by too much care you spare them every ki...
Louis-Cesare and Ray were in trouble. I could tell because I could see them, not clearly, but in fits and starts, little glimmers like a couple of ghosts, if ghosts made "oh shit" faces on the one hand agitated French gestures on the other. And that ...
A thousand years ago the Chinese had an entirely codified kitchen while the French were still gnawing on bones. Chopsticks have been around since the fourth century B.C. Forks didn't show up in England until 1611, and even then they weren't meant for...
On of the reasons that I wanted to study literature was because it exposed everything. Writers looked for secrets that had never been mined. Every writer has to invent their own magical language, in order to describe the indescribable. They might see...
Trevor realized that the odd thing about English is that no matter how much you screw sequences word up up, you understood, still, like Yoda, will be. Other languages don't work that way. French? Misplace a single or and an idea vaporizes into a soni...
You will die, and when you die, you will know a profound lack of it [dignity]. It's never dignified, always brutal. What's dignified about dying? It's never dignified. And in obscurity? Offensive. Dignity is an affectation, cute but eccentric, like l...
Two spacemen touching in anti-gravity is like a kiss. But then, there is nothing like a kiss. A kiss is a rare bird. The first sip of champagne. The fleeting glimpse of a shooting star. The kiss is uniquely human. We exchange bodily fluids with a kis...
Writing is a beast to tame, an energy to transform. Whip that toad into a prince and French kiss it to life. We start at the top but keep looking down, from macro to micro, from what could work to what does—but start with the dream. Nothing is real...
It was not the way Curve smelled that Colin liked - not exactly. It was the way the air smelled just as Lindsey began to jog away from him. The smell of perfume left behind. There's not a word for that in English, but Colin knew the French word: sill...
But here's something that I know about friendship: Sometimes the right thing to do is to not point out that your friend hasn't touched her chicken fingers or French fries and not point that maybe she's just overreacting. Instead, you just smile and s...
Writers in what we now call the Middle English period (late twelfth century to 1485) did not necessarily always write in English. The language was in a state of flux: attempts were made to assert the French language, to keep down the local language, ...
I felt that he was a captive of financial and sentimental commitments, like every other man I know, and that he was no more free to fall in love with a strange woman he saw on a street corner than he was to take a walking trip through French Guiana o...
The German birds didn't taste as good as their French cousins, nor did the frozen Dutch chickens we bought in the local supermarkets. The American poultry industry had made it possible to grow a fine-looking fryer in record time and sell it at a reas...
Because whipping an atlas at Jackson's head while he was flirt-touching that Frankie girl in geography would have been very satisfying. And beating him with the Eiffel Tower snowglobe while he kissed Cleo in French would have been tres cathartic. But...
You are not a perfect woman.You have an evil temper, you’re as blind as a mole, you’re a deplorable poet, and frankly, your French accent could use some work.” Supporting himself on his elbows, Leo took her face in his hands. “But when I put ...
Eliot was scornful of idle women readers who imagined themselves the heroines of French novels, and of self-regarding folk who saw themselves in the most admirable character in a novel, and she hoped for more nuanced engagement from her own readers. ...
Do you know what the imagination is, Susan?" The child nodded sagely. "That's when you see things that aren't really there." "Well, not exactly," said Kris with a smile. "No -- to me the imagination is a place all by itself. A very wonderful country....
...apparently "London" gave out my address! that's what they're saying...not just London, though! Brazzaville, too!...and said that I'm a dirty pornographer...a letch besides being the most despicable traitor of the century!...I'd make a urinal blush...
For all the enlightened nations that profess a loyalty to liberty, democracy, economy and all the rest, there has long been a readiness to look for a chosen one; as Carlyle pointed out, even the French, those great anti-venerators, those relentless b...
The door she had just stepped through shut softly. Taylor faced Veris, took a deep breath and dropped the coat at her feet. Beneath she wore black lace-topped stay-up stockings, red and black French lace thong panties and a matching shelf bra, Swarov...
Whether they come from Brooks Brothers or a thrift store, the sweaters we wear have a magnificent ancestry. Their history spans the worlds of Irish fishermen, French knights, World War I soldiers, busty Hollywood 'sweater girls,' and the television s...
