On my first day in London I made an early start. Reaching the Public Record Office not much after ten, I soon secured the papers I needed for my research and settled in my place. I became, as is the way of the scholar, so deeply absorbed as to lose a...
That was one other time when my whole body reacted to the fear and went out of my own control. My nerves came apart completely, and I started vomiting and vomiting. I couldn't stop. It had been such a narrow escape. I kept telling myself that I could...
Very quickly, very suddenly, words fell through my mind. They landed on the floor of my thoughts, an in there, down there, I started to pick the words up. They were excerpts of truth gathered from inside me. Even in the night, in bed, they woke me. T...
The world is constructed of pairs. The sky overhead and the depths of the earth. Light and dark. It originates from either end, and then wanders the gap between... The land belongs to the sky, starting at the horizon. The sea would appear to be in be...
Anthony Bridgerton leaned back in his leather chair,and then announced, "I'm thinking about getting married." Benedict Bridgerton, who had been indulging in a habit his mother detested—tipping his chair drunkenly on the back two legs—fell over. C...
Lauren: Hey. Um. This is kind of a weird - but do you ever wonder how many times your life is gonna end? A pause. Schultz: Uh... I'm not sure I know what / you-- Lauren: Like how many people you're...like how many times your life is gonna totally cha...
Red's world, you see, is a closed circle. Not that it matters. I know that I'm a closed circle, too, and it's all I can do to find some starting point from myself, while at the same time trying to find my own terminus. There's no way I'm ever going t...
I used to think, that when my old inner demons started creeping back into my life, that it was a sign of failure or moral weakness. But the saints have shown me that part of the human condition is to struggle with the same sins and suffering over and...
Misery is a no U-turns, no stopping road. Travel down it pushed by those behind, tripped by those in front. Travel down it at furious speed though the days are mummified in lead. It happens so fast once you get started, there’s no anchor from the r...
Boredom forces you to ring people you haven’t seen for eighteen years and halfway through the conversation you remember why you left it so long. Boredom means you start to read not only mail-order catalogues but also the advertising inserts that fa...
Still, though, I can't be sure if the zoo as I recall it was really like that. How can I put it? I sometimes feel that it's too vivid, if you know what I mean. And when I start having thoughts like this, the more I think about it, the less I can tell...
Some of this book—perhaps too much—has been about how I learned to do it. Much of it has been about how you can do it better. The rest of it—and perhaps the best of it—is a permission slip: you can, you should, and if you're brave enough to s...
I am writing this book so the doers, the drivers, and the hard workers out there will have a Step-By-Step ultra-practical guide that will teach the specific action steps one must take to start and grow a successful business. If you take action and do...
A game like sardines is scary, not so much for the hider but for the seekers. It's scary because you lose your companions and the whole world creeps up quiet and you slowly realize you're going to stumble upon a secret place where everyone will jump ...
I was finally tired of hiding behind bravado. My family had hurt me so many times that I had started to lie about my feelings to everyone. To Sarah. To Maddie. To Ethan. And to myself. I was like an iceberg, with ninety percent of my real feelings su...
That night in bed I was thinking about the way creeks and streams operate. They start off little, gurgling and bubbling and jumping over rocks and stuff, full of energy, going all over the place. Then they get older and bigger, become rivers, take a ...
I'm like the moon," he started, "the hidden side of the moon. Not seen because it don't want to be seen. Everyone knows ther's is shadow there, but no one looks. It's like that with me, Byrd. I'm part illuminated, part in shadow-and that part that sh...
...'you have to ask yourself though, who are we to stop a war?’ I sigh, wishing that the glittering pinpricks above us were truly stars. It was rare to see any due to the endless cloud cover. ‘Who are we not to?’ I say, to no one in particular....
These days, it feels to me like you make a devil's pact when you walk into this country. You hand over your passport at the check-in, you get stamped, you want to make a little money, get yourself started... but you mean to go back! Who would want to...
I slept well last night. But when I woke this morning, I missed you so intensely. I don't even know how to describe the sensation. I looked at the other pillow, and it just seemed wrong that you weren't there. As though I'd woken up missing my own ar...
I had a dream about you. You were a wholesale hole salesman, and I was a wholesale half salesman. I told you a half a hole is the same as a whole hole, and you said the pricing isn’t the same. I agreed and I disagreed, and I tried telling you this,...
