One of my favourite things about dining outdoors in a warmer season is that it frees hands and bares skin. ... When we don't need to wear or carry heavy clothing, our bodies feel lighter and our hands are freed for other things. Like carrying bottles...
...I am a person who believes in form, in the harmony of order. Where we can, we must give things a meaningful shape. [...] It is important in life to conclude things properly. Only then you can let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should ha...
I am going to kill you," he hissed. She gulped. "Don't you want to lecture me first?" He stared at her with a heavy dose of stupefaction. "I take that back," he said with precisely clipped words. "First I am going to strangle you, and then I am going...
May 4, 1985. I am packing for a short trip to New York to discuss the cat book with Brion. In the front room where the kittens are kept, Calico Jane is nursing one black kitten. I pick up my Tourister. It seems heavy. I look inside and there are her ...
As he carefully made his way back to the stairs and awkwardly turned off the light, he did not notice that the dark shadow he had assumed was his reflection remained in the mirror. He didn’t see the hands press against the surface and make large, l...
Listen, I'm bossy. I can't help it. It's who I am and what I do. I'm pushy and I like to take over. But I'm going to work really hard not to do so much and your going to try and accept me the way I am. Flaws and all. Because I'm good in bed and I can...
I heard the water-fall rejoice Singing like a choir, I saw the sun flash out of it Azure and amber fire. The earth was like an open flower Enamelled and arrayed, The path I took to find its heart Fluttered with sun and shade. And while earth lured me...
Man is the only Patriot. He sets himself apart in his own country, under his own flag, and sneers at the other nations, and keeps multitudinous uniformed assassins on hand at heavy expense to grab slices of other people's countries, and keep them fro...
You don't have to do this," Ronan said. "There isn't anything else, man." "There's reality." Kavinsky laughed the word. "Reality! Reality's what other people dream for you." "Reality's where other people are," Ronan replied. He stretched out his arms...
In bed that night I invented a special drain that would be underneath every pillow in New York, and would connect to the reservoir. Whenever people cried themselves to sleep, the tears would all go to the same place, and in the morning the weatherman...
Emil on top of me, his breath heavy on my neck. As our eyes met and held, the playfulness turned into something else entirely, something with a lot more heat. Emil leaned in, barely brushing his lips against my own he whispered, “We were good at th...
The dead were buried above ground, the loose soil heaped around them. The heavy rains of the monsoon months softened the mounds, so that they formed outlines of the bodies within them, as if this small cemetery beside the military airfield were doing...
One week after New Year's Day in 2006, I was on a flight to Aceh…As we walked down the steps on to the tarmac, the air felt humid and tropical, familiar and almost Balinese. It felt like going home. As the heavy air embraced me, my first inclinatio...
Heavy misfortunes have befallen us, but let us only cling closer to what remains, and transfer our love for those whom we have lost to those who yet live. Our circle will be small, but bound close by the ties of affection and mutual misfortune. And w...
All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant."] The original Hebrew word that has been translated "paths" means "well-worn roads' or "wheel tracks," such ruts as wagons make when they go down our green roads in wet wea...
Going up that river was like travelling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish...
And leaning on the windowsill to enjoy the day, gazing at the variegated mass of the whole city, just one thought fills my soul: that I profoundly wish to die, to cease, to see no more light shining on this city or any city, to think no more, to feel...
Though she’d begun to get a bit fat that winter, it was in February, around when her father found a toy poodle (sitting there, in the side yard, watchful and waiting as a person), and adopted it, that a weightlessness entered into Chelsea’s blood...
I turned on the television and watched a movie about a girl who’d fallen in love with both a vampire and a werewolf. I’d already seen it a million times, so my eyelids grew heavy, fairly quickly. Ten minutes later I was out cold in my bed and dre...
Be game--take a chance--don't hide behind veils and veils of discretion... Go forward with what you have to say, expressing things as you see them. You are new evidence, fresh and young. Your work, the spirit of youth, you are the progress of human e...
You know, in human society, it's considered impolite to molest a sleeping person. In fact, it's seen as pretty creepy." His gaze shot to her face and found her regarding him through dark eyes heavy with sleep but lit with amusement rather than indign...
