Rather than seek to be squired and dated by their rivals why should it not be possible for women to find relaxation and pleasure in the company of their 'inferiors'? They would need to shed their desperate need to admire a man, and accept the gentler...
Contentment sounds ideal; and ignorance is bliss! But what remains of truth, justice and liberty? Why can millions of parent do what I did, and not give the law a consideration? Why do I have to suffer the losses of divorce—the pain and sorrow so a...
I was in my favorite seat in the library, but it wasn’t helping me like the book any better. It was a book people kept putting in my hands and telling me I was going to love, the way the doctor tells you the needle won’t hurt a bit. The book bega...
They had also brought in a piece of human scrap so monstrous that everyone recoiled at the sight, that it shocked men who were no longer shockable. I shut my eyes; I had already seen far too much and I wanted to be able to forget eventually. This thi...
Why can someone get so sick that the only way to get better is to make them more sick? It’s like the world’s longest exorcism. It doesn’t make sense that I can chat with someone live on a tiny screen, that governments spend billions of dollars ...
When you kill someone, something from that person passes to you - a sigh, a smell or a gesture. I call it "the curse of the victim." It clings to your body and seeps into your skin, going all the way into your heart, and thus continues to live within...
I loved my father, but I was not like him. I never needed to believe the best of people. I took them as they were: two-faced, desperate, kind - perhaps all at once. But to Pa, they were all children of god, poor troubled sheep, who only needed love a...
An aversion came over me that we feel for all the mutilated. Why is that so, do you think? Because they put us in mind of what we would rather forget: how easily, at the stroke of a sword or a knife, wholeness and beauty are forever undone? Perhaps. ...
We had no one else to learn this from- none of our parents were shining examples of relationship success- so we learned this from each other: when someone you love needs you to, you can get a hold of your five-alarm temper, get a hold of the shapeles...
Emma felt frightened, apprehensive, yes, but also elated and excited, her feelings all tumbled and mixed together like a stew of varied ingredients tossed into the same pot. She was aware of the blood coursing through her veins, the beat of her heart...
Walter had never liked cats. They'd seemed to him the sociopaths of the pet world, a species domesticated as an evil necessary for the control of rodents and subsequently fetishized the way unhappy countries fetishize their militaries, saluting the u...
Why did I not die? More miserable than man ever was before, why did I not sink into forgetfulness and rest? Death snatches away many blooming children, the only hopes of their doting parents: how many brides and youthful lovers have been one day in t...
So the peasants are used as targets in war?” I doubted. “Does the Overhead feel that is necessary to kill off one of their own? Peasants are being placed as diversions on the front line like they mean nothing—” “Would you rather save the st...
All humans at some time experience injustice, assault, disqualification, invasion and betrayal. No person is completely shielded. We need not trace our family trees very far back or study for long what life was like for our forbears to uncover humani...
We all have a certain knowledge about how the universe works. And when someone comes along and challenges that knowledge, we don’t know how to deal with it. We aren’t hardwired that way. It’s difficult to question everything you’ve ever thoug...
I was blind and heart broken and didn't want to do anything and Gus burst into my room and shouted, "I have wonderful news!" And I was like, "I don't really want to hear wonderful news right now," and Gus said, "This is wonderful news you want to hea...
Maybe I was supposed to hate Caroline Mathers or something because she’d been with Augustus, but I didn’t. I couldn’t see her very clearly amid all the tributes, but there didn’t seem to be much to hate. She seemed to be mostly a professional...
Learning to should be learned before learning to Life should be touched, not strangled. You've got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it. It's like boats. You keep your motor on so you can steer with the current. And wh...
In the middle of the night I am awakened by a sound. I sit up abruptly in bed. I hear it again. It's music. Wait, it sounds like the ice cream man, in our house. Is this some kind of twisted nightmare? The flipping ice cream man, breaking in to chop ...
I did some research on this a couple years ago," Augustus continued. "I was wondering if everybody could be remembered. Like, if we got organized, and assigned a certain number of corpses to each living person, would there be enough living people to ...
I listen to the rain talk to the leaves. She tells a story of love and leaving (isn’t that always the story? Isn’t that always the punchline?) She tells it softly like someone who has recently lost something that cannot be replaced. She closes he...
