Further, any way of life based on the importation of resources is also functionally based on violence, because if your way of life requires the importation of resources, trade will never be sufficiently reliable: if people in the next watershed over ...
We make a pretty good team, huh?" "The best. In fact, I was planning to do this when we got back to the Fairmont, but suddenly I don't want to wait." "For what?" Reaching into the pocket of his black pinstripe suit coat, he retrieved a huge square-cu...
I walk in the sprinkling rain like a lion. Pretty soon there won't be lions anymore. If I have to die to be a lion I'll die. I'm roaring, but in the language of rain and sand: I am invisible, I blend in, and I'm not hungry so everyone is safe. I can ...
Then they wondered if there were men in the stars. Why not? And as creation is harmonious, the inhabitants of Sirius ought to be huge, those of Mars middle-sized, those of Venus very small. Unless it is the same everywhere. There are businessmen, pol...
It was so stupid, and random, but at that second, with the morning sun hitting her auburn hair, and her huge brown eyes fixed on him, the lock flew off the “do-not-allow-yourself-to-even-think-about-it” portion of his brain, and every feeling he ...
There are gentle souls who would pronounce Lolita meaningless because it does not teach them anything. I am neither a reader nor a writer of didactic fiction, and, despite John Ray's assertion, Lolita has no moral in tow. For me a work of fiction exi...
If you’d rather skip lunch, that’s fine with me. I’ve got some things to take care of anyway before I can leave the store to Robin for the weekend.” “I don’t want to skip lunch,” he bit out. “I’m starving.” Her temper got the bett...
A kind of second childhood falls on so many men. They trade their violence for the promise of a small increase of life span. In effect, the head of the house becomes the youngest child. And I have searched myself for this possibility with a kind of h...
On April 18, 1906, when that earthquake hit San Francisco and took David from her, Vivien began to speak the language of grief. She understood that grief is not neat and orderly; it does not follow any rules. Time does not heal it. Rather, time insis...
She had come to that state where the horror of the universe and its smallness are both visible at the same time—the twilight of the double vision in which so many elderly people are involved. If this world is not to our taste, well, at all events, ...
Liall realized that this was the first time he had really been alone with Scarlet. He stood up and held out his hand. The blanket dropped from his shoulders. "Come here." Scarlet reached out to him tentatively and Liall quickly dragged him into his a...
To sit indoors was silly. I postponed the search for Savchenko and Ludmila till the next day and went wandering about Paris. The men wore bowlers, the women huge hats with feathers. On the café terraces lovers kissed unconcernedly - I stopped lookin...
Just then, just when I thought I would be free from the repeated blows to my tender head of the Stupidity Hammer, the Stupidity Hammer rose up from the shining screen, drew back, whirled hugely, and with great force and might and main slammed me righ...
Hey, if you're going to say what I think you're going to say…wait, are you going to say it?” he asked, smiling down at me. “Yes, yes I think so.” I grinned shyly back. “Well, then I think we should say it at the same time, yes?” he sugges...
Look at this building, it is in our common world in which there is no violence. This is a huge skyscraper, which, on its part-functional spacecraft, where you can go wherever you go, it is like an anthill, he is in the form of man, handsome, strong m...
Hey, Alec," he said. The man was on his hands and knees, leaning his face into the middle of a bush; he grunted something that kind of sounded like a "Yeah?" "Why are we spending so much time on this side of where we left them?" Alec pulled himself o...
There is a huge trapdoor waiting to open under anyone who is critical of so-called 'popular culture' or (to redefine this subject) anyone who is uneasy about the systematic, massified cretinization of the major media. If you denounce the excess cover...
The key to the scientist's purpose is the idea that every phenomenon is the product of a certain given set of condition. In his laboratory he hopes to reconstitute the set of conditions, however complex they may be, which, once they are fully reconst...
Carine McCandless: With almost a year having passed since Chris' disappearance my parents' anger had turned to desperation. Their guilt was giving way to pain. And pain seemed to bring them closer. Even their faces had changed. She convinces herself ...
Dean McCoppin: Get back! I said get back! I mean it! The Iron Giant: No. Stop. Wait. Hogarth Hughes: It was an accident. He's our friend. Dean McCoppin: He's a piece of hardware, Hogarth. Why did you think the army was here? He's a weapon, a big... b...
Hattori Hanzo: What brings you to Okinawa? The Bride: I'm here to see a man. Hattori Hanzo: Oh yeah? You have a friend living in Okinawa? The Bride: Not quite. Hattori Hanzo: Not a friend? The Bride: I've never met him. Hattori Hanzo: Never? Who is h...
