They WERE walking alongside the road, they WERE hit by a car, and now they ARE dead. It doesn't work. Are is present tense. Dead is -- well, dead is past, isn't it? Present tense modifying past; being modifying non-being. Language, in this instance" ...
After every shirt she looks at me and smiles, letting go of air she no longer needs. She laughs after the sweater, knowing I’m gonna tell her it’s too hot for it, knowing she’ll say it’s for the plane and ask “what if the room gets cold?
Helda's been trying to impress me with the embroidery on the sheets. One more minute and I thought I might use them to hang myself." "My mother did the embroidery," Bittterblue said. Katsa clapped her mouth shut and glared at Helda. "Thank you, Helda...
You should give it to Max, Liesel. See if you can leave it on the bedside table, like all the other things." Liesel watched him as if he'd gone insane. "How, though?" Lightly, he tapped her skull with his knuckles. "Memorize it. Then write it down fo...
As every slumdweller knew, there were three main ways out of poverty: finding an entrepreneurial niche, as the Husains had found in garbage; politics and corruption, in which Asha placed her hopes; and education.
From the newsstands a dozen models smiled up at her from a dozen magazine covers, smiled in thin-faced, high-cheekboned agreement to Kessa's new discovery. They knew the secret too. They knew thin was good, thin was strong; thin was safe.
How does a woman gain such wisdom in only twenty-nine years?” Gordon asked, escorting her across the lawns toward the mansion. “The same way a man does." “Which is?" Lady Keely cast him an ambiguous smile. “Either you are born with wisdom, my...
I took my first acting class at age 6 because I found out that's what Carol Burnett was doing - acting. Also she had an imaginary friend as a kid and went to UCLA, two things we have in common. I will always admire her and hope one day, I can make so...
I was watching TV at age 9 or 10, and my mom said that I came from the front room and I told her that I want to act. And she said if you want to do this at 18, then you can. It was a very simple story, yet, I do not even remember the conversation tha...
I'd like to look like Madonna when I'm her age. I also look at athletes and love their bodies. I've always wanted to be muscly, not skinny. A lot of women yo-yo around, but I'm always aware if I'm getting a bit out of shape. I never look at the scale...
I'm not terribly well read. My wife forces books into my hands and insists I read them, which I'm grateful to her for. She made me read 'War and Peace.' The whole thing. It was amazing, but I had to hide it. You can't walk round reading 'War and Peac...
Yo Mama's so fat her butt cheeks have different area codes.
Yo Mama’s so poor, when I lit her house on fire, the cockroaches came out singing, “Clap your hands, stomp your feet, praise the Lord, we got some heat!
Aomame raised her glass to the moon and asked, “Have you gone to bed with someone in your arms lately?” The moon did not answer. “Do you have any friends?” she asked. The moon did not answer. “Don’t you get tired of always playing it cool...
Humility is hard when someone has things like wealth, knowledge, & recognition that may tempt him/her behave and act pridefully. Otherwise, worrying about pride without these factors that predispose you, it is just an illusion.
It's always better to attack than to defend," Coram had told her when they talked about fencing late at night. "Always. Ye don't win with defense--ye only hold the other feller off, or wear him down. Attack and have done with it!
Is this life?'Alice wondered, not doubting that the question was original and all her own. 'Is it life to spend your time imagining things that aren't so, and never will be? Beautiful things happen to other people; why should I be the only one they n...
The bastard kissed her. She was so mad, she bit him hard enough to draw blood. Raphael pulled back, lip already beginning to swell. “We are no longer even, Elena. You’re now in debt.” “You can deduct it from my slow and painful death.
She still remembered sitting for hours as a little girl and pretending to be a hassock. A foot stool. Because if she could just stay very small, and very quiet, her mother would forget she was there, and then she wouldn't scream about people and plac...
She lay outside in the courtyard, staring up at the raindrops… feeling them hit her body… trying to guess where one would land next. The nuns called again, threatening that pneumonia might make an insufferably headstrong child a lot less curious ...
It was dark now, and broodingly sluggish. Like something supine waiting to spring, with just the tip of its tail twitching. Leaves stood still on the trees. An evil green star glinted in the black sky like a hostile eye, like an evil spying eye. ("Fo...
