All men were tools, as she saw it. Dangerous tools, when roused, but that was why one took care in efforts of control. It all came back to leverage. It wasn’t enough to ask a man if he would kill his brother. One had to make him see the consequence...
A faraway-father is distant from his children; not necessarily in geography, but socially—either by choice or by force. Our country has many fathers who are figuratively-forced far and away from their families. Legal force brings to bear disparate ...
Burr had the dark and severe coloring of his Edwards ancestry, with black hair receding from the forehead and dark brown, almost black, eyes that suggested a cross between an eagle and a raven. Hamilton had a light peaches and cream complexion with v...
There would be no more offerings. Not this day. Not any day. Humankind had suffered enough for its love of gods, its long search for God. He thought of the many centuries in which his people, the Jews, had negotiated with God, complaining, bickering,...
I took my orders, too. But if i couldn't keep you alive, I thought I could at least keep you together. In the middle of a big war, you go looking for a small idea to believe in. When you find one, you hold it the way a soldier holds his crucifix when...
Jed thought he understood. It was like when his radios were thrown away. You could shrug your shoulders, put on a face that said you didn't care, but you did and nothing could ever be secure again. The next time security appeared as a possibility, yo...
Do you really suppose God cares whether a man comes to good or ill?" "If He did not, He could not be good himself..." "...Then He can't be so hard on us as the parsons say, even in the after-life?" "He will give absolute justice, which is the only go...
Father, I am from a different egg than your other children. Think of me as a duckling raised by hens. I am not a domestic bird destined to spend his life in a chicken coop. The water that scares you rejuvenates me. For unlike you I can swim, and swim...
Doubts are good. It means you are alive and searching. One does not become a believer overnight. He thinks he is a believer; then something happens in his life and he becomes an unbeliever, after that, he becomes a believer again and then an unbeliev...
Okay, so, flying,” I started, taking a deep breath and focusing on the thing I loved most in the world. “Flying is … great. It feels great when you’re doing it. It’s fun. Pure freedom. There’s nothing better.” Dylan smiled, a slow, easy...
Lucien had never prayed before, never imagined that there might be a deity listening who would be interested in what he had to say, so his supplication skills were a tad rusty. But now Lucien prayed. Please don’t take her from me just as I’ve fou...
Bluestar blinked. "There are cats who would argue that there should never have been a fifth Clan in the forest at all. Why are there four oaks at Fourtrees, if not to stand for the four Clans?" Firestar gazed up at the massive oak trees, then back at...
How many more times would I have embraced him that night, how many more times would I have kissed him, if I had known the name of that stranger lover who was already in Montreal, who had already bought his stadium ticket from a scalper for the 5,000 ...
To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?" he said. I placed my hands flat on the table and leaned across it. "Stay the hell away from him." "Who? Oh, you mean the guy who's gonna bite it soon?" "He's not. He's going to be fine." He reached a ha...
Hey." She said, looking up from an open book propped up on one knee. She brushed a few strands of pale hair out of her face. Her boyfriend, Christian, lay on the floor near her, his head propped up on her other knee. He greeted me by way of a nod. Co...
Commitment and family were important decisions, but so were matters of t he heart. [Monique] might not know much about politics, but she knew she couldn’t command her heart to love. And she’d never be pressured into giving herself to Eero, not to...
Out of the noise of tired people working, Harried with thoughts of war and lists of dead, His beauty met me like a fresh wind blowing, Clean boyish beauty and high-held head. Eyes that told secrets, lips that would not tell them, Fearless and shy the...
Jesus Christ.” The fury on Nick’s face was enough to send me reeling and he hit the table hard enough with his hand that it made the plates and the silverware on the table bounce and clatter. “You give me the names and approximate location of t...
It’s total bullshit,” he said. “The whole thing. Eighty percent survival rate and he’s in the twenty percent? Bullshit. He was such a bright kid. It’s bullshit. I hate it. But it was sure a privilege to love him, huh?” I nodded into his s...
The sight made her ache. she thought hopelessly, and then she was doing it, her fingers on his wrist. He didn't jump or even look at her, just stopped writing. Neither one of them moved, nothing moved, and the whole thing lasted three or four seconds...
Fear! Fear again, for the first time since his 'teens. Fear, that he thought he would never know any more. Fear that no weapon, no jeopardy, no natural cataclysm, has ever been able to inspire until now. And now here it is running icily through him i...
