A cemetery?" I chuckle, but the pitch is a bit higher than I expected. "At night? With a full moon? Um ... did you see any, uh, zombies, you, while you were there?" Shiko blinks at me a few times. "No" I slump in relief. "Thank God. I mean, I don't w...
You mean we won't get to run through burning buildings?" I could see he wanted to laugh, but instead he watched me intently. "What? Why are you staring at me?" "I'm not staring. I'm observing." I smiled through my tears. "And what do you observe?" He...
I want a life that sizzles and pops and makes me laugh out loud. And I don't want to get to the end, or to tomorrow, even, and realize that my life is a collection of meetings and pop cans and errands and receipts and dirty dishes. I want to eat cold...
Do an overwhelming number of respected scientists believe that human actions are changing the Earth's climate? Yes. OK, that being the case, let's undermine that by finding and funding those few contrarians who believe otherwise. Promote their messag...
Standing there, peering around his room, Pete realized something that should have dawned on him years ago: Science really did suck. (Russell was right.) There just wasn’t any point to it. Sure, in its most altruistic distillation, science saved liv...
Eleven years she had lived in the dark house and its gloomy garden. He was jealous of the very light and air getting to her, and they kept her close. He stopped the wide chimneys, shaded the little windows, left the strong-stemmed ivy to wander where...
Cathy smiled back ‘Rules were meant to be broken.’ ‘Don’t disagree,’ Oversteegen replied immediately. ‘Indeed they are. Providin’, however, that the one breakin’ the rules is willin’ t’ pay the price for it, and the price gets cha...
You hunt and catch your own food. Am I correct?" "We are fierce predators of the night," DeChevue said proudly. Edwin tried again, "You hunt and gather your own food?" DeChevue still didn't get it. "Yes, M'sieur. We hunt, proudly." "You know, there i...
Is it possible that we ‘hate’ politics because we have forgotten its specifi c and limited nature, its overwhelming value, and also its innate fragility? Could it be that our expectations are so high that politics appears almost destined to disap...
Unlike men in the same position, women leaders have to continue to walk the fine line between appearing incompetent and nice and competent but cold. Experimental studies find that, unlike men, when they try to negotiate greater compensation they are ...
I look forward all day to evening, and then I put an "engaged" on the door and get into my nice red bath robe and furry slippers and pile all the cushions behind me on the couch, and light the brass student lamp at my elbow, and read and read and rea...
Then it’s a deal, we’re friends.” […] “Can we just make one conditional rule here? That if we get into a situation where we know—absolutely—that we’re going to die, we can have—“ She pulled her hand away. “Don’t say it!” He ...
Since dugpas wished to get you out of here, where you were safe, how else should they expel you than by causing you to expel yourselves by violence? When fools make war they expend their resources squandering money and life and food until the victor ...
Back in grade school, my shrinks tried to channel my viciousness into a constructive outlet, so I cut things with scissors. Heavy, cheap fabrics Diane bought by the bolt. I sliced through them with old metal shears going up and down: . The soft growl...
He had been taught as a child that Urras was a festering mass of inequity, iniquity, and waste. But all the people he met, and all the people he saw, in the smallest country village, were well dressed, well fed, and contrary to his expectations, indu...
Don’t misunderstand me. The terrorist actions of Al-Qaeda were and are unmitigatedly evil. But the astonishing naivety which decreed that America as a whole was a pure, innocent victim, so that the world could be neatly divided up into evil people ...
I can’t hear God’s voice for my kids, but I can watch and listen and pray and adjust and try not to screw up whatever He has planned for their lives. And although I can’t make them listen to God, or even want to, I can plant enough seeds to swi...
The anarch differs from the anarchist in that he has a very pronounced sense of the rules. Insofar as and to the extent that he observes them, he feels exempt from thinking. This is consistent with normal behavior: everyone who boards a train rolls o...
When people recover from depression via psychotherapy, their attributions about recovery are likely to be different than those of people who have been treated with medication. Psychotherapy is a learning experience. Improvement is not produced by an ...
The power to assimilate crude inorganic matter as it is found in the soil, and convert it into living protoplasm and other organic substances, or to use such substances in performing physiological function, does not belong to the animal organism. It ...
The bistro was his secret weapon in tracking down murderers. Not just in Three Pines, but in every town and village in Quebec. First he found a comfortable café or brasserie, or bistro, then he found the murderer. Because Armand Gamache knew somethi...
