Of all her putative fathers -- Max Schlepzig and masked extras on one side of the moving film, Franz Pökler and certainly other pairs of hands busy through trouser cloth, that Night, on the other -- Bianca is closest, this last possible moment below...
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'...
A good relationship has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules. The partners do not need to hold on tightly, because they move confidently in the same pattern, intricate but gay and swift and free, like a country dance of Mozar...
Who told you you couldn't come back when you're grown? Was it the same person who told you grown-ups don't cry or blush or clap their hands when they're happy? Don't try to say otherwise, I've seen you fighting like a boxer to change your face so tha...
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...
I -- I alone know how to mourn for him as he deserves.' But while we were still shaking hands, such a look of awful desolation came upon her face that I perceived she was one of those creatures that are not the playthings of Time. For her he had died...
War is hell, but sometimes in the midst of that hell men do things that heaven itself must be proud of. A hand grenade is hurled into a group of men. One of the men throws himself on top of it, making his body a living shield. In the burst of wild fi...
He knew how to handle pain. You had to lie down with pain, not draw back away from it. You let yourself sort of move around the outside edge of pain like with cold water until you finally got up your nerve to take yourself in hand. Then you took a de...
The multitude of men and women choose the less adventurous way of the comparatively unconscious civic and tribal routines. But these seekers, too, are saved—by virtue of the inherited symbolic aids of society, the rites of passage, the grace-yieldi...
The battlefield is symbolic of the field of life, where every creature lives on the death of another. A realization of the inevitable guilt of life may so sicken the heart, that like Hamlet, or like Arjuna, one may refuse to go on with it. On the oth...
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...
Search your heart. He's there, Kate. You can ignore Him, try to run and hide from Him, even convince yourself that He's not there, but He promised us that he would never leave or forsake us." He tipped his head to the side. "Kind of like how you prom...
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...
Gabriel pulled her over his body to lie on the bed beside him. His kisses pressed her down into the oblivion of the mattress as her hands explored his chest, his shoulders, his face. "I want to lay my kill at your feet," he said, more growl than word...
Aunt Prue was holding one of the squirrels in her hand, while it sucked ferociously on the end of the dropper. 'And once a day, we have ta clean their little private parts with a Q-tip, so they'll learn ta clean themselves.' That was a visual I didn'...
Bran,” I sob. “You have to go.” He just smiles. “Bran! You must!” Again the smile. He won't leave. He'll be my faithful friend forever. He'd rather die by my side than skip free without me. I return the smile. “Very well,” I sigh and re...
I'm just sorry your dragon is so hell bent on mating with someone as fucked up looking as me," he murmured, keeping his voice light even though he wasn't joking at all. God, everything about her was perfect. It was no surprise she was so resistant to...
She really liked you, Noah,' 'Yeah, well, maybe I'm just an asshole.' I realize my hand is still in his hair and I retract it quickly. He grabs it, holds it against him. You're not an asshole I'm thinking, but for some reason I can't say it. It would...
I was coming up on a cross street when a man wearing a filthy suit stepped out from around the corner of the building ahead and directly into my path. Bent with age, he turned bleak red eyes to me and stared. Pressed with his chest to both hands he c...
What they have is science, and in science only that which is subject to the senses. The spiritual world, on the other hand, the loftier half of the man's being, is rejected altogether, cast out with a certain triumph, hatred even. The world has procl...
