Why are doors more difficult to open as if some sadness were leaning against them? Why do windows darken and trees bend when there is no wind? You call that occasional roar the roar of a plane and I imagine a time when I might have believed that. But...
I looked at Victor, my heart swelling from the emotion. “When I die, please do the same ceremony for me,” I whispered, choking up. “This is the most captivating and emotional event I have ever been part of.” “I’m afraid you’ll have to a...
Go ahead and try. I'll attempt to loosen up. Her muscles tightened when I took her hand in mine. "Do you know any self-hypnosis?" "I guess I'm tensing too much." She took several deep calming breaths then tensed her muscles and relaxed them, repeatin...
It is as if there were in the human consciousness a sense of reality, a feeling of objective presence, a perception of what we may call ‘something there,’ more deep and more general than any of the special and particular ‘senses’ by which the...
Be cautious then, young ladies; be wary how you engage. Be shy of loving frankly; never tell all you feel, or (a better way still), feel very little. See the consequences of being prematurely honest and confiding, and mistrust yourselves and everybod...
Amid the worry of a self- condemnatory soliloquy, his demeanour seemed grave, perhaps cold, both to me and his mother. And yet there was no bad feeling, no malice, no rancour, no littleness in his countenance, beautiful with a man's best beauty, even...
As a young woman, I schooled my romantic sensibilities on the most impossible examples. "Romeo and Juliet" is one of my favorites. I once plotted out the length of time it took them to conjoin. Four days. Four days for one of the world's greatest sto...
What sense would it make to classify a man as handicapped because he is in a wheelchair today, if he is expected to be walking again in a month, and competing in track meets before the year is out? Yet Americans are generally given 'class' labels on ...
Not many years before the Happening, one of your country's largest religious bodies officially declared that their book was holier than their God, thus simultaneously and corporately breaking several commandments of their own religion, particularly t...
Lea found that she was saying things, saying them pretty loudly, but had no clear concept of what she was saying. [Sean and Andy’s] names, maybe. The seventy-two names of God. The capitals of all fifty states. Love. That word featured in there a lo...
Rome tolerated every abominable practice, embraced every foul idea in the name of freedom and the rights of the common man. Citizens no longer carried on deviant behavior in private, but pridefully displayed it in public. It was those with moral valu...
We are at our best when we love the Lord and his church more than our style of life. We do not believe in our country, right or wrong. If evil has such a grip upon the institutions of government, we know that evil must be overthrown by one means or a...
Do you think that romantic love is natural; that the life of trade is honorable; that freedom of worship is desirable? Very likely you think none of those things; you have uncritically absorbed them, and only since you came to college begun to learn ...
I am here to determine my relationship." Simon goggled. She couldn't be talking about him. Could she? "Do you see that man?" Isabelle asked, pointing at Simon. Apparently she was talking about him. "That's Simon Lewis, and he is my boyfriend. So if a...
This is the other secret that real artists know and wannabe writers don’t. When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication. She approves. We have earned favor in her sight. When we sit ...
Nobody's busting into YOUR apartment at three in the morning, are they? Well, then don't worry about what they're doing in South Korea and places like that. It's like the standard of living. Are you content to achieve your higher standard of living a...
Where and how did my relationship with Kumiko go wrong? That's what I can't understand. Not that I'm saying everything was perfect until that point. A man and a woman in their twenties, with two distinct personalities, just happen to meet somewhere a...
She wasn't dressed like a student. She wore an elaborate burgundy dress with long skirts, a tight waist, and matching burgundy gloves that rose all the way to her elbows. Moving deliberately, she managed to get down off the stool without tangling her...
The first thing I did when I got inside was turn on the kitchen light. Then I moved to the table, putting my dad's iPod on the speaker dock, and a Bob Dylan song came on, the notes familiar. I went into the living room, hitting the switch there, then...
isaac knows how stupid i find these things, and he finds them just as stupid as i do. like lol. now, if there's anything stupider than buddy lists, it's lol. if anyone ever uses lol with me, i rip my computer right out of the wall and smash it over t...
The faery lady looked at Hettie curiously from beneath her wig. "You know..." she said, very softly. "All I wanted was that you would be my friend. That isn't very much to ask, is it? Doesn't everyone in the Smoke Lands have a friend? Doesn't everyon...
