What do you think we should do about Sampson?" I asked. "I would have to say...stop him," Sam said. "How?" I asked her. "Someone who is as powerful and as smart and crazy as he is should do it." "Okay, but who?" "Well...you should." "So you think I'm...
M. Proust was more severe than M. de Caillavet on Anatole France: "He was selfish and supercilious. He had read so much that he had left his heart in other people's books, and all that remained was dryness. One day I asked him how he came to know so ...
You might have good, moral efforts of working hard and earning money in order to help feed the poor or something along those lines - and then you get the money you’ve been seeking and you see and feel and taste how sweet it is and you only want mor...
Marla poked Duncan. He stepped forward. "Maybe I can help." Atomic Jack looked at him., his eyes glowed a sickening shade of radioactive orange. "I really don't see how." He slipped off his glove and his hand burst into small flames. The guy didn't y...
So the Bawdy Bluestocking was the proprietress of her own shop, selling lurid novels to ladies in the front and more esoteric fare in the back, from the looks of the shelves around him. He spied Pope and Crabbe, Shakespeare, of course, and names he d...
Once more, he was immersing himself in books, reaching the end of long articles, even going back over paragraphs to make sure he'd grasped things. How much more satisfying it was than all that skimming, all that jumping around. At present, he was wor...
...no matter how liberal a church may seem, Christian dogma still revolves around an ancient, paternalistic image of God the Father, who quite frankly isn’t much more believable than the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus.
Two hours. More than enough time to kidnap a man. Or to slice his throat, bury him in the forest, and steal his magic project. How the hell did de Harven fit into it? Did he surprise the thieves? Of course, Adam Kamen could've killed his uber-bodygua...
They're really into it, laughing and teasing each other, and I am looking at Pam and thinking once again how she is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen and that if we were back in the olden times she might have been made into a goddess becau...
As of this writing, I am twenty-five years old. I have been alive for 307 months. Nine of those months were pretty terrible. But 298 of those months have been very good. I have been happy. I have been very blessed. Who knows how many more months I ha...
[Talking about Monte Rissell] ...and like Ed Kemper he was able to convince the psychiatrist he was making excellent progress while he was actually killing human beings. This is kind of a sick version of the old joke about how many psychiatrists it t...
Tell me a truth, Senna." "I don't know how," I breath. "Then tell me a lie." "I don't love you," I say. I sink beneath the weight of it all. Isaac stirs behind me, and then he is leaning over me, his elbows on either side of my head. "The truth is fo...
I discovered that I am not disciplined out of virtue but as a reaction to my negligence, that I am generous to conceal my meanness, that I pass myself off as prudent because I am evil-minded, that I am conciliatory in order not to succumb to my suppr...
We all love each other, Ange," I said impatiently, hating this whole conversation. "No, not like this," she went on relentlessly. "Fang loves you."......My mouth dropped open. How does she know this stuff? "Forget it! No one's getting married!" I his...
The problem, of course, was that people did not seem to understand the difference between right and wrong. They needed to be reminded about this, because if you left it to them to work out for themselves, they would never bother. They would just find...
We must teach our children to get 'EXCITED' about life and the World around them,instead of 'painting' their minds with OUR potrayal of 'how' the World is...children learn from 'emulating' their elders,not by being told...which asks US to 'live' that...
This is the point where the knowing, irony-infused author laughs along with his readers about his time among the aphorisms, how he was once so gullible and needy that he drank deeply of such weak and fruity Kool-Aid. That's some other book. Slogans s...
And what made these heart-to-hearts possible--you might even say what made the whole friendship possible during that time--was this understanding we had that anything we told each other during these moments would be treated with careful respect: that...
A North Korean soldier would later recall a buddy who had been given an American-made nail clipper and was showing it off to his friends. The soldier clipped a few nails, admired the sharp, clean edges, and marveled at the mechanics of this simple it...
While you and I are allowed the luxury of our pain, president isn't. A president must take into account how his citizens feel and he must manage them and lead them, but he must not succumb to personal feelings. His job is to maintain a ruthless sense...
I revere the word of God for I love its poetic force. I loathe the word of God for I hate its cruelty. The love is a difficult love for it must incessantly separate the luminosity of the words and the violent verbal subjugation by a complacent God. T...
