When you go out hunting wicked spirits, it's the simple things that matter most. The silvered point of your rapier flashing in the dark; the iron filings scattered on the floor; the sealed canisters of best Greek Fire, ready as a last resort... But t...
I laughed to myself as I headed for Finley's car. She had no idea what kind of harrassment she was in for, and I was going to enjoy every minute of it. Secretly, she would, too. I knew it. I could smell it on her, kind of like how a dog smells fear. ...
But what slayed Robert was that for all these years, all his adult life, he'd never believed in relationships and commitment. They were highly overrated as far as he was concerned. Some people's entire lives revolved around love...finding it, keeping...
My mother, who would always buy her books new, hated it the vintage hardcovers with their cracked spines and threadbare cloth covers. True you couldn't go in there and buy the latest best seller, but when you held one of those volumes in your hands, ...
I watched her with the crab as she ignored all my admonitions that the poor crab just needed to be set free if he was to have any chance of surviving. And God showed up there on that beach to teach me a lesson. Nothing survives when it's being smothe...
Some things a girl has in her to say no to and some things cut her down before she knows she’s gone. Sure, some twiggy, thorny snap in her says: no, this is awry, this is a bent thing, in that place that tells her to belly up to the floor before an...
In Swann's mind, however, these words, meeting no opposition, settled and hardened until they assumed the indestructibility of a truth so indubitable that, if some friend happened to tell him that he had come by the same train and had not seen Odette...
This was many years ago. The staircase wall on which I saw the rising glimmer of his candle has long since ceased to exist. In me, too, many things have been destroyed that I thought were bound to last forever and new ones have formed that have given...
I dined with Legrandin on the terrace of his house by moonlight. "There is a charming quality, is there not," he said to me, "in this silence; for hearts that are wounded, as mine is, a novelist whom you will read in time to come asserts that there i...
He cleared his throat and held up one hand dramatically. He grinned at us, waiting for applause. "That last line was four syllables.” Artemis said. Apollo frowned. “Was it?” “Yes. What about “No, no, that’s six syllable, hhhm.” He start...
Hope is when we have a beautiful vision of something and a positive emotion to go along with it. When our world comes crashing down, when we are trapped in a deep, dark, despairing hopelessness, we need a bigger perspective. Hope comes when we reflec...
Nora sobered and turned back to the windows, her breath fogging the glass. "We may as well lay some ground rules if we're going to be stuck here for a few days." "Okay." "You can keep the bed, I prefer the sofa. I don't cook. I'm not a maid, so pick ...
I care not how humble your bookshelf may be, or how lonely the room which it adorns. Close the door of that room behind you, shut off with it all the cares of the outer world, plunge back into the soothing company of the great dead, and then you are ...
Braith turned and saw three of her cousins sunning themselves on boulders. Like lizards. Lizards in human form. “What are you doing?” Braith asked. “Enjoying the suns,” replied one. “It gives our scales a lovely bright hue,” said another....
Practice giving things away, not just things you don't care about, but things you do like. Remember, it is not the size of a gift, it is its quality and the amount of mental attachment you overcome that count. So don't bankrupt yourself on a momentar...
What is most troubling, and sad, about industrial eating is how thoroughly it obscures all these relationships and connections. To go from the chicken ( ) to the Chicken McNugget is to leave this world in a journey of forgetting that could hardly be ...
I know what it is: it's a green mamba snake away up in the tree. You don't have to be afraid of them anymore because you are one. They lie so still on the tree branch; they are the same everything as the tree. You could be right next to one and not e...
He buys Playboy magazines and looks through them once, then gives them to me. That’s what it’s like to be rich. Here’s what it’s like to be poor. Your wife leaves you because you can’t find a job because there aren’t any jobs to find. You...
The thing that worries me is that I'm so different from other writers. Connecticut is just another state to me. And nature - well, nature is just nature. When I see a tree whose leafy mouth is pressed against the earth's sweet flowing breast, I think...
The keepers would give the gorillas an assortment of fruits and vegetables each afternoon, and on this particular occasion, Judy Sievert tossed Nina an apple, which rolled away. Instead of going to get it, Nina just 'sat there sadly,' in Judy's words...
she had graduated from the Beaux Arts in Caen. She worked entirely on her body, she explained to me; I looked at her anxiously as she opened her portfolio. I was hoping she wasn't going to show me photos of plastic surgery on her toes or anything lik...
