She didn’t understand why it was happening,” he said. “I had to tell her she would die. Her social worker said I had to tell her. I had to tell her she would die, so I told her she was going to heaven. She asked if I would be there, and I said ...
I was just as black as I had been the day that I was born. Therefore, when I faced a congregation, it began to take all the strength I had not to stammer, not to curse, not to tell them to throw away their Bibles and get off their knees and go home a...
A raging, glowering full moon had come up, was peering down over the side of the sky well above the patio. That was the last thing she saw as she leaned for a moment, inert with fatigue, against the doorway of the room in which her child lay. Then sh...
Believing himself to be unseen by other bathers, he gave himself up to being alone with his body. He wriggled his toes, breathed hard through his nose, twisted his brown moustache where some drops of water still clung, and looked himself critically a...
Hey! look at us We're digging and digging Into stubborn, ancient earth; We're discovering Where we came from, and how we came. "but where are you going?" Hey! look at us We're learning and learning Into stubborn laws Of nature and space And non-natur...
anxiety becomes high energy when taken to the light. For me, it worked like this: I used to live in a constant state of anxiety, worrying about the past and the future. Now I do my best to focus my attention on the present moment. So the mental energ...
I started toward the barn and was grateful that the wind was still. About halfway up the drive, my heart began to beat an irregular rhythm as I caught sight of Cricket coming toward me. My breath caught in my throat. This girl. This tiny little girl ...
Back then, I think, both sides were just very young. They needed to grow up enough to realize that thing get quite complicated in the business of living, that a lot of things require mutual understanding and compromise. I mean, when you get right dow...
I haven't done anything you're supposed to do. Like get so drunk you puke and don't remember the rest of the night." "Overrated, I swear." She looked at me, that deadly look on her face, and I held up my hands. "Fine. You wanna get drunk and puke, I'...
What a night it was! The jagged masses of heavy dark cloud were rolling at intervals from horizon to horizon, and thin white wreaths covered the stars. Through all the rush of the cloud river the moon swam, breasting the waves and disappearing again ...
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been a cat guy. Every night as I go to sleep, I have this particular fantasy I indulge in. Most men dream about naked women, but not me. I dream about being isolated in a mountainous forest in the middle o...
Gavin, I never thought you’d be the irrational one in this relationship, but I’m happy to report that you’ve just thoroughly shocked me.” He rolled to his side to lean on his arm, keeping my hand resting on his chest, buried underneath his sh...
The kiss is the greatest of gifts, uniquely human. A kiss before midnight. A kiss before dying. The Judas kiss. The kiss of the devil. A big wet smacker beneath the mistletoe. More can be said with a kiss than a book full of words. We kiss to say I l...
Oh, come on, just this once," Eve said. "Protects your neck. As in your arteries and veins? That's kind of crucial, right?" "Thanks for the thought, but it doesn't go with my shoes." "You're seriously going to worry about what people think right now?...
But how nice it would be to know that some good Yankee woman - And there must be SOME good Yankee women. I don’t care what people say, they can’t all be bad! How nice it would be to know that they pulled weeds off our men’s graves and brought f...
An intense cold swept over them all. Harry felt his own breath catch in his chest. The cold went deeper than his skin. It was inside his chest, it was inside his very heart. . . . Harry’s eyes rolled up into his head. He couldn’t see. He was drow...
Now comes the picture of mass defeat, the most awesome spectacle of the war. It is in the bent bodies of old women who poke among ruins seeking some miserable object that will link their lives with the old days. It is in the shamed darting eyes of th...
Harry lost any sense of where they were: Streetlights above him, yells around him, he was clinging to the sidecar for dear life. Hedwig’s cage, the Firebolt, and his rucksack slipped from beneath his knees — “No — HEDWIG!” The broomstick sp...
The giant raised his fist, and a voice cut through the dream. "Leo!" Jason was shaking his shoulder. "Hey, man, why are you hugging Nike?" Leo's eyes fluttered open. His arms were wrapped around the human-sized statue in Athena's hand. He must have b...
Indeed, there is something about reading in a restaurant that is borderline romantic. Leaning back in that corner booth, an evocative title in our hands, a stale cup of java in front of us, every so often bolting forward to jot a phrase onto the napk...
An inn, of course, was a place you came to at night (not at three o'clock in the afternoon), preferably a rainy night—wind, too, if it could be managed; and it should be situated on a moor (“bleak,” Kate knew, was the adjective here). And there...
