Most of the passenger cars are lined with thick patterned carpets, upholstered in velvets in burgundies and violets and creams, as though they have been dipped in a sunset, hovering at twilight and holding on to the colors before they fade to midnigh...
The city was lovely. There could be no place in the world to which he belonged so completely. That was why he'd always dreamed of leaving, and why he'd always been so afraid to go.
It's not a real name," she says. "Not one that he's carried with him always. It's one he wears like his hat. So he can take it off if he wants.
The cold reality of what he is ― what I am ― sets in like cement and our former selves have been buried and smothered to death beneath the thick concrete of our separate fates.
He makes it sound so Zen. Or Jedi. Like some kind of Wolf Yoda. There is no try. And maybe that’s all there is to it. Don’t over-think the shift. Just embrace the form that I want to be in.
It appeals to the higher nature of the self to put aside food which once lived - I do not consider myself food, why should I ask all other creatures to consider themselves so?
The onset of adulthood is an organic, creeping process. No one wakes up one day and decides, "Lo, on this day I shall forever put away childish things and begin clipping coupons to go to Wal-Mart.
Woman! Come out! I have—" She looked down at the bloodless grass, embarrassed. "I have come to rescue you," she finally said, as if admitting that she were covered in boils.
He thought again of the watch in the window. It had twelve black numbers on its moon face and there was magic to that. For these were numbers that were not really numbers at all but letters like in words. He shivered at the possibilities of such unto...
I don't see myself very clearly. Then look at the people who love you...Look into their eyes and see what they're seeing; that's all you need to know yourself.
...I only told you about it because I thought I might get a laugh out of you for once even if it wasn't the truth, Jessie. Things don't have to be true to talk about 'em, you know.
That's the advantage of insomnia. People who go to be early always complain that the night is too short, but for those of us who stay up all night, it can feel as long as a lifetime. You get a lot done
In Bruce’s opinion, the only fun in dating was the sport of it. The more it was like a tennis match, where he had to wear down his opponent through expertise and sheer force of will, the better he liked it.
Your breasts are alabaster orbs.' "What?" Rufus objected. "That's stupid. I'm not saying that." "Do you have some better suggestion?" "Why can't you just say she's got a fair set of titties?
He dropped the tavern apron in a heap on the floor and pulled the freshly laundered one up and over his head, tied it with slightly tremoring fingers. The vast whiteness felt like absolution.
She looked defeated, a castle stormed, torn down, with no one living inside. She looked like a hollowed-out creature, only shell and no soul.
Twas a cold Yuletide evening, and I wandered the stacks, shelving multiple titles that the patrons brought back. We toiled overtime at our library here, 'cause the powers that be cut our staffing this year.
The use of imaginative fiction is to deepen your understanding of your world, and your fellow men, and your own feelings, and your destiny.
well, death says, as he walks by, I'm going to get you anyhow no matter what you've been: writer, cab-driver, pimp, butcher, sky-diver, I'm going to get you
That's it? That's all that happens after you topple from grace? We lose our rubies and rations?" Marshall smirked. "Woe is me.
I would not have shied away from an assignment to sail a canoe around Cape Horn or to take charge of the government of Afghanistan.
