Eyyia?" said her husband, and Eliane bet Danel heard the mangling of her name as music. "You sound like a marsh frog," she said, moving to stand before his chair. By the flickering light she saw him smile. "Where have you been," she asked. "My dear. ...
See the stars, Lily?" She sighed, surrendering. "Of course." "Do you think they can see the sun coming up?" "I don't know. Probably?" "Do you think they're scared?" "They're burning balls of gas, Calder." "Oh, c'mon. Where's the poet in you?" She exh...
...The man who stood before her was taller and stranger than anyone she had ever encountered. His unkempt hair was a long dark brown, partially braided and twisted around twigs, the tips of his pointed ears poking between strands. His bare chest made...
I would have stolen it for you, had I known you were interested." His voice was muffled by the door to the lumber room down the hallway, and I heard thumps and a crash. I raised my voice a trifle more than mere volume required. "I'm interested becaus...
Just as sex is a God-given instinct for the prolongation of the human race, so the desire for property as a prolongation of one's ego is a natural right sanctioned by natural law. A person is free on the inside because he can call his soul his own; h...
I love this world," he added. "That is what rules my life. When I die, I want to have done all in my power to leave it in a better state than it was when I found it. At the same time I know that this can never be. The world has grown so complex that ...
There is a strange duality in the human which makes for an ethical paradox. We have definitions of good qualities and of bad; not changing things, but generally considered good and bad throughout the ages and throughout the species. Of the good, we t...
As Master Nathaniel jogged leisurely along his thoughts turned to the Farmer Gibberty, who many a time must have jogged along this path, in just such a way, and seen and heard the very same things that he was seeing and hearing now. Yes, the Farmer G...
He looks between the two. "Evie," he starts, as if he's explaining something to a five year old, "You do know that they can say whatever they want to on the package, right? It doesn't mean it's true.""Well, see," I counter, "You're right. But you're ...
It is truth, in the old saying, that is 'the daughter of time,' and the lapse of half a century has not left us many of our illusions. Churchill tried and failed to preserve one empire. He failed to preserve his own empire, but succeeded in aggrandiz...
Everyone tells a story about themselves in their own head. That story makes you what you are, dictating all your actions and all your mistakes. If your own story is filled with guilt and fear and self-hatred, life can look pretty miserable.But, if yo...
Something amazing happens when the rest of the world is sleeping. I am glued to my chair. I forget that I ever wanted to do anything but write. The crowded city, the crowded apartment, and the crowded calendar suddenly seem spacious. Three or four ho...
In fact, Lig never formally resigned his editorship—he merely left his office late one morning, and has never returned since. Though well over a century has now passed, many members of the Guide staff still retain the romantic notion that he has si...
Birds and periodic blood. Old recapitulations. The fox, panting, fire-eyed, gone to earth in my chest. How beautiful we are, he and I, with our auburn pelts, our trails of blood, our miracle escapes, our whiplash panic flogging us on to new miracles!...
Tribe life is not easy for anyone. But at least I was born female. I hate to think what my life would be like if I had not been." That made the dragon chuckle. "You don't hear that very often from Southlander women." "I do not know why," Elina answer...
You see, Squirt, there's heaven, and then there's hell. Hell is where they send all the bad people, like criminals and con artists and parking inspectors. And heaven is where they send all the good people, like you and me and that nice blonde from Ma...
...I take the view that God, in his infinite wisdom, didn't bother to spring for two joints - heaven and hell. They're the same place, but heaven is when you get everything you want and you meet Mommy and Daddy and your best friends and you all have ...
Have you ever done something that you were really ashamed of? I mean somehing so bad you felt sick just thinking about it?' 'Everyone has. Why, what'd you do?' 'I didn't say goodbye to Mum.' 'That's not so bad.' 'Did you say goodbye to your mum befor...
Those who love much, do much and accomplish much, and whatever is done with love is done well.... Love is the best and noblest thing in the human heart, especially when it is tested by life as gold is tested by fire. Happy is he who has loved much, a...
Holly clambered after him, struggling up the human-size steps. "Wait! Just wait," she called, overtaking Artemis and looking him in the eye from one step up. "I know you, Artemis. You like to play your genius card close to your chest until the big re...
There is no word in our language which has been so much misused and prostituted as the word . It has been preached by those who were ready to condone every cruelty if it served their purpose; it has been used as a disguise under which to force people...
