Advice? I don’t have advice. Stop aspiring and start writing. If you’re writing, you’re a writer. Write like you’re a goddamn death row inmate and the governor is out of the country and there’s no chance for a pardon. Write like you’re cl...
You're never lost. You always know exactly where you are. You're right here. It's just that sometimes you've misplaced your destination. Brian W. Porter 2005 Have you ever wondered how the computer you're using got to the store? How about your medici...
Just think about it. Procreation. You give to the next one down the line. That's really all we've got. Society, government, money, religion, careers, nuclear families, monogamy. These are all just highly creative socially accepted delusions that we i...
Except they kept asking me questions like 'What is your biggest source of conflict about the Pope?' Or 'Has the Pope ever tried to suppress your scientific work?' Completely out of left field! "They didn't want to hear me tell them how much Pope Bene...
He finds his way up the side of my neck, biting me just a little, moving lightly back and forth, like he's searching for a special spot. When he finds it, I make small sound I've never heard myself make before, like a gasp. He traces his tongue in sl...
Desjani pulled out a ration bar. 'Hungry?' she asked Geary. 'I had something earlier. Is that a Yanika Babiya?' 'No. It’s . . .' She squinted at the label. 'Spicy chicken curry.' 'A chicken curry ration bar? How are they?' Taking a small bite, Desj...
[Richard Bedford Bennett] was the richest Prime Minister and the only millionaire to hold office before Pierre Trudeau. His money obviously colored his thinking -- colored it true blue -- but he did not consider it a political drawback. No leader, he...
It’s not that fact of him telling me he’s not going to kill me that assures me I’ve got some time to breathe. Predo could look me in the eye and tell me whiskey’s good and cigarettes are better and I’d still need a drink and a Lucky to beli...
That's just stupid, Tory! Quit being so damn stubborn!” “Not a chance! You've got some kind of death wish! We can't even trust our power lately. They're too erratic for a public heist.” Ben thumped the steering wheel in frustration. “Maybe fo...
Hold onto one thought: You're not important. You're not anything. Some day the load we're carrying with us may help someone. But even when we had the books on hand, a long time ago, we didn't use what we got out of them. We went right on insulting th...
But in the name of all that is holy, Mosca, of all the people you could have taken up with, why Eponymous Clent?" murmured Kohlrabi. Because I'd been hording words for years, buying them from peddlers and carving them secretly on bits of bark so I wo...
Me: “I refuse to attend Support Group.” Mom: “One of the symptoms of depression is disinterest in activities.” Me: “Please just let me watch America’s Next Top Model. It’s an activity.” Mom: “Television is a passivity.” Me: “Ugh...
Forgiveness. The frail beauty of the world takes root in me as I make my way back through the woods, past the caves and the ravine, where the earth has accepted the flesh of the deer, leaving nothing but a bone or two, peeking above Kartik's makeshif...
...my father, [was] a mid-level phonecompany manager who treated my mother at best like an incompetent employee. At worst? He never beat her, but his pure, inarticulate fury would fill the house for days, weeks, at a time, making the air humid, hard ...
You come to this place, mid-life. You don’t know how you got here, but suddenly you’re staring fifty in the face. When you turn and look back down the years, you glimpse the ghosts of other lives you might have led; all houses are haunted. The wr...
I've never had a boy in here," Martin said in a serious voice. "I've never touched another man, as a matter of fact. . . .except for my father. That was my duty." Blomkvist's temples were pounding. He could not put his weight on his feet without bein...
Hm-m," he said. "Lookie, Ma. I been all day an' all night hidin' alone. Guess who I been thinkin' about? Casy! He talked a lot. Used ta bother me. But now I been thinkin' what he said, an' I can remember- all of it. Says one time he went out in the w...
Minds me of a story they tell about Willy Feeley when he was a young fella. Willy was bashful, awful bashful. Well, one day he takes a heifer over to Graves' bull. Ever'body was out but Elsie Graves, and Elsie wasn't bashful at all. Willy, he stood t...
Roman ignored her and took her ankles and flipped them purposefully, but because of her hands she could not turn all the way and ended up with her legs scissored unintuitively, and suddenly things were different. Ashley had heard girls tell stories o...
You ever have the feeling you were in the wrong place? That if you could just get over the next hill, cross the next river, look down into the next valley, it'd all...fit. Be right." "All my life, more of less" “All your life spent getting ready fo...
Everybody has a soul." I turn to Pelly. "And that means you, too." "I'm not so sure of that," he says. "What does it feel like?" "Having a soul?" I look at Maxine, but she only shrugs. "I don't know," I tell Pelly. "I don't have anything to compare i...
