Memory is a barricade against forgetting; light is a bulwark against darkness; life is a flex against the stillness of the grave. Maybe that's what I'm trying to do here, clear a space in all the debris, through all the anxieties and worries, where I...
I am no longer the left behind. I am the living. And I want everything this life has to offer. I stop for a second and look around at all the shops and stores and stalls. At all the people, going about their days, at all the moments they're living. T...
First, the explosion of life. Then came the celebration. Such as it had been for generations and generations, as long as the eldest of the eldest could remember; as long as the record books had kept steady score. By the time the first buds were edgin...
Some years ago I read a book that brought Einstein's theory of relativity down to an eighth grade level. This convinced me that any subject can be made easy. In other words, always beware of anyone who tells you a topic is above you or better left to...
For a moment, I felt sorry for him. The pain and disappointment of his life hung about him like a cloak. It permeated the air, giving him a rank and bitter scent. This, I mused, was an example of human betrayal left festering, and I felt some compass...
I'm American. Like I told you. And I'm American and not something else because they failed that day. They couldn't do it and most of them probably knew they couldn't do it before they even started, but they went anyhow. There's honor in that. I don't...
The ones that change...it’s not that going actually changed them its that they didn’t have something better waiting for them when they got back. They changed because its who they wanted to be. Not everyone is lucky enough to have the better half ...
Tis not fair, you know. I have no life left, not even enough to get up, and you are footslogging around this chamber as if you have fire under your…” She paused. “My what?” He was grinning at her. “Your big feet.” He laughed loud and hear...
Selfish Dreamscapes If you have a dream, as you should, relish in being selfish about building every passionate aspect of it. The crowd of spectators and consumers will still be exactly where you left them... gossiping about everybody else's dream bu...
Have you noticed her name?" Kit leaned sideways to see the letters painted jauntily on the transom. "The WITCH! How did you dare? Does Hannah know?" "Oh, she's not named after Hannah. I hadn't gone ten miles down the river that day before I knew I'd ...
Was it possible to love a man who made you feel ridiculous? Of course [.....], love was complicated, that was all. Or was love simple, and marriage was complicated? In seventeen years of marriage David had often left her feeling frustrated, and furio...
What? An alien. You think I'm from outer space." She snorts in disbelief. "I'm Kelly Tillman, you dumb-ass. From 41 Montana Avenue, Valentine, Texas. What's left of it. I canned seventh grade for a piece-of-crap job with lousy tips and lousy hours. Y...
Then, just at the peak of complacency, when it was assumed that the climate of the world had changed forever, when the conductor of the philharmonic played Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and left out an entire movement, and when to children of a young age ...
And of the Witch? In the life of a Witch, there is no "after", in the "ever after" of a Witch there is no "happily"; in the story of a Witch, there is no afterword. Of that part that is beyond the life story, beyond the story of the life, there is-al...
I'm trying to keep you safe." Safe as a porcelain bowl wrapped in cotton linen and boxed up. It would be a lie to say she didn't want to feel safe, or that Nolan's worry didn't leave her feeling warm and even a bit precious. But it also left her feel...
I had a dream about you. You winked at me and said the meat’s fresh, and I didn’t know which meat you were referring to. So I zipped up my pants and left the Men’s room in a hurry. I’d rather buy my thinly sliced beef somewhere else.
We cannot buy it. We are too poor. Then men who have made the law have taken our own drink from us, and have not left us wherewith to buy it. Yet they can buy it, because they are rich. I have a feeling that that is not just. I do not grudge them the...
When you do something, you should do it with your whole body and mind; you should be concentrated on what you do. You should do it completely, like a good bonfire. You should not be a smoky fire. You should burn yourself completely. If you do not bur...
Those who did know Jesus - those who followed him into Jerusalem as its king and helped him cleanse the Temple in God's name, who were there when he was arrested and who watched him die a lonely death - played a surprisingly small role in defining th...
I look up to my brother - he inspires me so much. He has always been my best friend. He knows everything. I left the house at 16 when I auditioned for 'American Idol' and he was 14. It was one of those things that was so sudden and neither of us expe...
Do you remember back at the hotel when you promised that if we lived, you’d get dressed up in a nurse’s outfit and give me a sponge bath?" asked Jace. "It was Simon who promised you the sponge bath." "As soon as I’m back on my feet, handsome," ...
