If words had cost money, Tom couldn't have used them more sparingly. The adjectives were purely descriptive, relating to form and colour, and were used to present the objects under consideration, not the young explorer's emotions. Yet through this au...
I think she is going to find you too old... Yes that was it, the moment she said it I knew it was true, and the revelation caused me no surprise, it was like the echo of a dull, not unexpected shock. The age difference was the last taboo, the final l...
A stab had clearly once been made at de-uglifying these public spaces by painting a corridor a jaunty yellow. This was because, it turned out, babies come here to have their brains tested and someone thought the yellow might calm them. But I couldn�...
I suppose each of us has his own fantasy of how he wants to die. I would like to go out in a blaze of glory, myself, or maybe simply disappear someday, far out in the heart of the wilderness I love, all by myself, alone with the Universe and whatever...
Should a writer have a social purpose? Any honest writer is bound to become a critic of the society he lives in, and sometimes, like Mark Twain or Kurt Vonnegut or Leo Tolstoy or Francois Rabelais, a very harsh critic indeed. The others are sycophant...
What if the preacher or father’s saying ‘Someone here’s lost and hopeless’ was tantamount to those Sun-Times horoscopes that are specially designed to be so universally obvious that they always give their horoscope readers that special eerie ...
And suddenly, in the place of the woman-shape made of shadow, there was something else. Something huge, something ugly. Linay flung up both hands. The thing screamed like a hawk and opened to wings: one white as a death cap, one clotted in shadow. Th...
If you eat healthily most of the time you can afford to indulge yourself occasionally, but if you eat nothing but junk, you’ll end up not being able to run for a bus without huffing like a steam train. (The only drawback to being super-fit is that ...
You have to understand, before now, I hadn’t been entirely certain Reece even realized I was female. Yet here he was, edging toward me as if I was territory to be protected. Something Mal didn’t intend to allow if his side-stepping maneuver meant...
It is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make Man better be; Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere: A lily of a day Is fairer far in May Although it fall and die that night; It was the plant and fl...
[He] looks just like one of those unapproachable, incomprehensible, wilful little pre-human creatures, who in their ostensible innocence think only of themselves, who want to subordinate the whole world the their despotic will, and would do it, too, ...
A person's faith goes at its own pace. The trouble with church is the service. A service is conducted for a mass audience. Just when I start to like the hymn, everyone plops down to pray. Just when I start to hear the prayer, everyone pops up to sing...
They cleared swiftly, dramatically, like a stage set or a movie; we went from black to stunning blue, the day emerging at once wet and crisp, the trees dripping jewels, the flowers drunk on drinking, their heads lolling with dizzy delight, rivulets e...
What was after the universe? Nothing. But was there anything round the universe to show where it stopped before the nothing place began? It could not be a wall; but there could be a thin line there all round everything. [...] It pained him that he di...
A vinal shine turns over shades of cerulean and jasper from her expressive lips, revealing a jewel-like surface beneath a light that remains colorfast in a kiss composed of infinite grace. Being in a state of rest, Nadia still makes me the center of ...
You let me handle Marius," I said. "Now, you didn't come without you dagger." "No, I did not," he said, lifting his cloak to reveal it, "And with your permission I would like to plunge it through my heart now so I will most assuredly stone-cold dead ...
How we perceive, feel about and respond to people and situations is far more guided by the lessons of early childhood than we would like to believe. We may be adults, chronologically and physically, but too often the youngest parts of our personality...
And those women were sneaky. They understood that including fantastical elements in their tales- golden eggs, signing harps, talking frogs- worked to mask a deeper purpose....it made the stories look on the surface like 'a mere bubble of nonsense' wi...
The Shrink always warned me that carriers stay wracked with lifelong guilt. It's not an uplifting thing having turned lovers into monsters. We feel bad that we haven't turned into monsters ourselves--survivor's guilt, that's called. And we feel a bit...
It would take more than long-stemmed roses to change my view that you're a despicable cowardy custard and a disgrace to a proud family. Your ancestors fought in the Crusades and were often mentioned in despatches, and you cringe like a salted snail a...
Yet Katie held fast to the dream that perhaps there were men in the world who appreciated good women - men capable of loving a woman enough to die for her. Something had to inspire the heroes in fairy tales and books. Her Aunt Augusta always said it ...
