I suppose that was an example of close attention to detail that is common to writers and artists. It is imperative, whether consciously or not, that one observe the vast as well as the infinitesimal in order to create the image or choose accurate wor...
Is being burnt a requisite for the making of art? Personally, I don't think it is. But art is poultice for a burn. It is a privilege to have, somewhere within you, a capacity for making something speak from your own seared experience.
He pulled out handcuffs and snapped them around my wrists. "Where's your bag? You didn't bring your staff?" "I have it. It's hidden." Charlie was currently tucked inside the leg of my Harry Potter pajama bottoms, which were beneath my jeans, but that...
Suspicion infused Alex's voice. "Okay? That's it?" I looked back at him and smiled. "That's it. We disagree. It's done. We'll deal with whatever comes next." He stood up, brows lowered over squinty eyes. "Did Lafitte ply you with brandy, or have the ...
I do not think that G. H. Hardy was talking nonsense when he insisted that the mathematician was discovering rather than creating... The world for me is a necessary system, and in the degree to which the thinker can surrender his thought to that syst...
I've learned to feel good when I feel good. it's better to be driven around in a red porsche than to own one. the luck of the fool is inviolate.
Stupid Ape: I had to quantify this with the word “stupid” so as not to offend the ape community. Large of limb, impotent of intellect, he was the kind of guy who lettered in leg-breaking at thug school but flunked the written exam because he didn...
In nature, improbabilities are the one stock in trade. The whole creation is one lunatic fringe. If creation had been left up to me, I'm sure I wouldn't have had the imagination or courage to do more than shape a single, reasonably sized atom, smooth...
Having spent all of my decision-making years as a Pagan of one stripe or another, I have long found it condescending at best to assume one cannot worship the old gods or believe in magick without breaking out the leather bracers, wings, or Ye Broken ...
But I find something compelling in the game's choreography, the way one move implies the next. The kings are an apt metaphor for human beings: utterly constrained by the rules of the game, defenseless against bombardment from all sides, able only to ...
I still say Kellyanne could do with some real-live mates," went on my dad, as if he was talking to someone inside his beer. Mum had stomped off into the kitchen. "Maybe they are real!" she shouted back at him after rattling a few plates together. "Ev...
I have watched the tears of frustration of a stroke victim or the autistic child who struggles to communicate a need or thought, but no one understands. Eventually, the soul grows quiet and gives up. At every stage of life, and in every circumstance,...
Well, then, he ought to write her a letter. He ought to say: 'This is to tell you that I propose to live with you as soon as this show is over. You will be prepared immediately on cessation of active hostilities to put yourself at my disposal; please...
He wouldn't write a letter because he couldn't without beginning it 'Dear Sylvia' and ending it 'Yours sincerely' or 'truly' or 'affectionately.' He's that sort of precise imbecile. I tell you he's so formal he can't do without all the conventions th...
Oh literature is a wonderful thing, Varenka, a very wonderful thing: I discovered that from being with those people the day before yesterday. It is a profound thing. It strengthens people’s hearts and instructs them,… Literature is a picture, or ...
Do you know how hard it is to paint kindness?” She leaned her hip against a desk in the corner of the room, still watching me. “It’s the only part of a person I really want to capture. Everything else seems to get lost in layers of deception or...
If we who follow Christ, with all the facts before us and knowing what we are about, deliberately choose the kingdom of God as our sphere of interest, I see no reason why anyone should object. If we lose by it, the loss is our own; if we gain, we rob...
Seniors get to do all the jolly things," Owen complained as they walked to archery practice that first day. Neal glared at the chubby second-year with all the royal disdain of a vexed lion. He was limping from a staff blow to the knee. "You are a blo...
He kisses me once more, on the forehead this time, and then he's gone. And I know I'm young, and fairly inexperienced where men are concerned, but I'm positive that even when I'm 90 years old I'll still remember exactly what it feels like to have his...
Don't go out there,” I yelled out, suddenly afraid for the man outside to figure out the way in. For whatever reason, so far he hadn't. To my way of thinking, if someone isn't in their right mind enough to figure out how to get into a store, they d...
[I]t is the writer's duty to write fiction which promotes virtue, the good, the beautiful, and above all, the true. ... It is the writer's duty to hate injustice, to defy the powerful, and to speak for the voiceless. To be ... the severest critics of...