Hard to believe that so nearby, just across the Channel, such atrocities could still occur in their supposedly civilized world, that one could wake up one morning and find oneself bereft of brothers, parents, friends, all with the slice of an ax.
Conroy writes that, while part of him was following the basketball game from the bench, "the other part, an embassy of a completely sovereign nation, would fling its doors open to the most authentic part of me.
I suddenly realise that it doesn't matter how far I go, or how lost I am, or how lonely I feel. I fit in here. I always will. That's how I know I'm home.
Word of advice, sister mine. If you want to keep your papers private, don't write 'Private' on the cover. It set the mater right off. It was all I could do to stop her sniffing around like some great sniffing thing.
A person without her or his own truth ain't a person at all, Ida said. Anybody who tells you different—is a jackass, and no longer deserves to be called human being.
I had declared in public my desire to be a writer ... I wanted to develop a curiosity that was oceanic and insatiable as well as a desire to learn and use every word in the English language that didn't sound pretentious or ditzy.
The misery of other people is only an abstraction [...] something that can be sympathized with only by drawing from one's own experiences. But as it stands, true empathy remains impossible. And so long as it is, people will continue to suffer the pre...
...we are all sorry when loss comes for us. The test of our character comes not in how many tears we shed but in how we act after those tears have dried.
The kiss stayed there with no place to go, no sensory reserve that could absorb it and file it away as a common act of intimacy, a thousand times received. He knew what Anna was asking: whether you could love someone without habits.
I see I have this patience to wait it out, and the truth is no matter how dark I feel I would never take my own life, because when the darkness is over, then what a blessing is the feeblest ray of light!
Cognitive insight (knowing something) is not like emotional insight (feeling something). It has no psychodynamic effects. It does not affect the narcissist's behavior patterns, or his interpersonal interactions - the products of well entrenched and r...
That year the Ribeiro's daffodils seeded early and they seeded cockroaches. Now, ecologically speaking, even a cockroach has its place -- but these suckers bit. That didn't sound Earth-authentic to me. Not that I care, mind you, all I ask is useful. ...
When in doubt, poke the beehive with a stick to see if anything interesting flies out. I clapped my hands. 'I had no idea Pit teams had such pretty cheerleaders. Can you do it again, but with more spirit this time?
Watching her, he saw again how she teetered between adolescence and adulthood, with a raw sensuality that had to deposit her in a kind of no-man's land--too much a woman for boys her own age, too young for fully adult men.
Living is a risk,' I snapped at him. 'Every decision, every interaction, every step, every time you get out of bed in the morning, you take a risk. To survive is to know you're taking that risk and to not get out of bed clutching illusions of safety.
The sound of my name in his voice stopped me in midturn. I don't know how the hell he did it, but whenever he said my name, it cut through all other distractions and made me pause, as if he'd clenched me to him and kissed me.
Are you happy? When I can get out of my own way. And the rest of the time? The rest of the time I'm in a state of silent panic. I'm afraid it will end. I'll lose him. Lose everything. I've done that. Lost everything. It's a bitch.
swore. “Barabas said you might say that. I’m supposed to tell you this.” Ascanio cleared his throat and produced a remarkably accurate impression of Barabas’s tenor. “Courage, Your Majesty.” “I will kill him.” “The Beast Lord or Bar...
It was one of those idiotic things that could've been resolved in a split second. Tara had no right to touch Raphael, and once she did he had every right to punch her. She should've left it at that, and now she was dead because she didn't.
Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea! How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.
Miles was still mourning the loss of his Romantic Plan. 'There was going to be champagne, and oysters, and you' -- he held out both hands as though shifting a piece of furniture -- 'were going to be sitting there, and I was going to get down on one k...
