{ } Despite their opposing religious views, the old revivalist on his deathbed asked to read to him from the black book clutched to his chest. relented, took the book, and was surprised to discover that it wasn't the Bible. It was describing the nobl...
The beautiful unruliness of literature is what makes it so much fun to wander through: you read Jane Austen and you say, oh, that is IT. And then you turn around and read Sterne, and you say, Man, that is IT. And then you wander across a century or s...
This time, I sat next to a pixie girl called Takara, who had pinkish hair and wore a bright pink dress to match. She was the first forest-dweller I had seen wearing jewellery: she was wearing a necklace and bracelet of finely worked crystal beads. Wh...
Mr Bott sits down and gestures gracefully to the board. "As you are clearly both fascinated by this text, would you like to explain the significance of Laertes in ?" He looks at Alexa. "Please go first, Miss Roberts." "Well..." Alexa says hesitantly....
I sit on the bed and kick off my shoes, and he kneels before me and takes the riding boots, holding one open for my bare foot. I hesitate; it is such an intimate gesture between a young woman and a man. His smiling upward glance tells me that he unde...
Can you imagine how incredibly quiet it was everywhere, when the gentlemen from this world" — he made a vague circular gesture towards the battalions of meditating Asians behind him — "were hatching and proclaiming their ideas? Anyone who now tri...
Procuring the house in Ballister was a desperate bid for respect, for recognition, the ultimate gesture (or sacrifice, as it turned out) that would prove him a worthy successor to the Flo and Walter Prices of the world. To my mind, the Culver was Nor...
I find something repulsive about the idea of vicarious redemption. I would not throw my numberless sins onto a scapegoat and expect them to pass from me; we rightly sneer at the barbaric societies that practice this unpleasantness in its literal form...
Pablo's many stories and reminiscences about Olga and Marie-Thérese and Dora Maar, as well as their continuing presence just offstage in our own life together, gradually made me realize that he had a kind of Bluebeard complex that made him want to c...
He pondered that a little while and then he asked, do Black people have to pay for their doctors, too? Because that's what TV programs had said. I smiled a little at this and told him it's not only Black people who have to pay for doctors and medical...
Beside me, Molly rolled her shoulders in a few jerky motions and pushed at her hair in fitful little gestures. She tugged at her well-tattered skirts, and grimaced at her boots. "Can you see if there’s any mud on them?" I paused to consider her for...
You really want my honest opinion?” I ask. Anton gestures for me to go on. “Please, this is why I hired you, devochka.” I detect a little hint of sarcasm, but I go ahead and say, “I hate restaurants like this.” “Why?” He seems genuinely...
I slept and I woke. She gave me a ring made from a leaf, a cluster of golden berries, a flower that opened and closed at the stroking of a finger.... And once, when I startled awake with my face wet and my chest aching, she reached out to lay her han...
The rapid nightfall of mid-December had quite beset the little village as they approached it on soft feet over a first thin fall of powdery snow. Little was visible but squares of a dusky orange-red on either side of the street, where the firelight o...
Steve Rogers: [Comes home to find Fury in his apartment] I don't remember giving you a key. Nick Fury: You really think I'd need one? My wife kicked me out. Steve Rogers: Didn't know you were married. Nick Fury: There are a lot of things you don't kn...
Ace Speck: [as Dr. Schultz questions Django] Hey! Stop talking to him like that. Dr. King Schultz: [looks to Ace] Like what? Ace Speck: Like that. Dr. King Schultz: My dear sir, I am simply trying to ascertain... Ace Speck: Speak English, goddamn it....
Kristofferson: Uh, do you mind if I slide my bed roll slightly out from under the train set? It's hard to sleep in that corkscrew position. Ash: [in the top bunk] There's a lot of attitudes going on around here. Don't let me get one. Kristofferson: N...
Gobber: And with one twist, he took my hand and swallowed it whole. And I saw the look on his face. I was delicious! He must have passed the word, because it wasn't a month before another one of them took my leg! [gestures to his fake leg] Fishlegs: ...
Neal: I'd like one room for the night. Del: If you're upset, maybe we should get separate rooms. Neal: You get your own room. Hotel Clerk: Will you be paying with credit card? Neal: Yes. I have a Visa card... Diner's Club card... and a gasoline card....
[Walter and Kitty are out at the Chinese Opera with Charlie and Dorothy Townsend] Charlie Townsend: Are you enjoying it? Kitty Fane: I've never seen anything like it. Charlie Townsend: Every gesture has a meaning. See how she covers her face with the...
Sefton: Okay, Herr Preisshoffer, let's have the mailbox. Price: The what? Sefton: The one you took out of the corner of your bunk and put in this pocket! [pulls a black queen out of Price's jacket] Sefton: Let me show you how they did it. They did it...
