All writers are insecure, the male ones especially. It's well known. Why else would they spend so much time on make-believe? They're only happy in their imaginary worlds, because that's where they're in charge - where they're God. Did you know that H...
How simple love would be, Younger Brother, if we only had to bestow it on those who deserved it. Yet what would it be worth? If you gave a poor man a silver coin then that would be a gift. If you expected him to pay you back, then that would make it ...
Before we got married we asked our grandfathers, whose own marriages had lasted forty years or more, "What is the secret to a happy marriage? And they paused, looked down at their chicken salad, and said, 'You really have to like each other. After th...
Your mother said that Fraser sent her back to me, knowing that I would protect her--and you. ... And like him, perhaps I send you back, knowing---as he knew of me--that he will protect you with his life. I love you forever, Brianna. I know whose chil...
She, herself, had only been in love once and it ended worse than a train wreck would, and she hated herself for what she had become because of it. Because of her ex-boyfriend, she didn’t trust easily, she didn’t date as much anymore, and she foun...
Eric lifted the long lock of hair that he dyed a different vibrant color every forty-nine days without fail and stared at it. His memory had served him correctly. It was currently cobalt blue—the exact same shade as the under-layer of her hair. Wha...
Jem made the little Scottish noise again, and Brianna looked sideways at him. "Are you doing that on purpose?" He looked up at her, surprised. "Doing what?" "Never mind. When you are fifteen, I'm locking you in the cellar." "What? Why?" he demanded i...
An emotion clamped down on her heart. It squeezed her into a terrible silence. But he said nothing after that, only her name, as if her name were not a name but a question. Or perhaps that it wasn’t how he had said it, and she was wrong, and she’...
I've missed you, Sebastian." "Have you, love?" He unfastened the buttons of her robe, the light eyes glittering with heat as her skin was revealed. "What part did you miss the most?" "Your mind," she said, and smiled at his expression. "I was hoping ...
This was their way of honoring the dead. The story over, the demands of their own hard, rough lives began to re-assert themselves in their hearts, in their nerves, their blood and appetites. Would that the dead were not dead! But there is grass that ...
I'd think it strange that the boardinghouse attracted both him and me, but that's what cheap places do -- draw in people with no money. An apartment of my own was unthinkable at that time of my life, and even if I'd found an affordable one it wouldn'...
Of course, owls on the loose seemed strange to the uninitiated. One day an electrician came to work on the building's power supply, when, seemingly out of nowhere, an owl flew around a corner right at him. The poor guy let out an unearthly scream and...
This tree, though, had not been fed on, so it was apparent that the culprit was a bull (elephant) who was filled with testosterone but no outlet for it, so he pushed over trees. It's a great release for a bull and a way of showing his strength after ...
He knows different now. It's the living that chase the dead. The long bones and skulls are tumbled from their shrouds, and words like stones thrust into their rattling mouths: we edit their writings, we rewrite their lives. Thomas More had spread the...
Bound souls. He had always thought the stories of men and women bound throughout all eternity by the strength of passion, either love or hate, were but pleasant tales for long winter’s nights. Bound souls, two sides of the same counter, together th...
If artists often get famous posthumously, then there is only one thing for me to do—fake my own death. Or I could just wait for science to give me a clone, and kill him instead. He’ll get my credit, and I’ll get his money.
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal,...
If you expect others to think for you, then you expect others to live your life for you. And I’m sorry, but the only person I’ll let live my life for me is my clone. He thinks like me, so I’m OK with him thinking for me.
How can she explain to him that every tear takes her further and further away from the box of razors that lies between them. How can she explain that she is terrified of such a thing happening. That although she thought she wanted freedom from her im...
I told them he'd be able to get you to go out." Rianne folded her winnings and tucked the bills into her blazer pocket. "Look at him." "He's right here, Ri," Carla murmured, shooting Keenan an apologetic look. "We've tried to teach her manners, but.....
Imagine every hideous and vile deed committed from the beginning of time until Christ’s future return—heaped upon the pure and perfect Son of God. Bearing the sin of many, he drank the very cup of wrath he prayed would be taken from him. No other...