We Pashtuns love shoes but don't love the cobbler; we love our scarves and blankets but do not respect the weaver. Manual workers made a great contribution to our society but received no recognition, and this is the reason so many of them joined the ...
Without the Project I was nothing but a secretary on a road to nowhere, drifting toward frosted hair and menthol addiction.
Sometimes, if you want to be happy, you've got to run away to Bath and marry a punk rocker.
Which just goes to show, I guess, that dinner parties are like everything else - not as fragile as we think they are.
Everywhere we went, every step we took, girls stopped talking and turned to stare. I'd never seen anything like it. But then, I don't suppose they'd ever seen anything like Reason. We found two seats together in the middle of the room and sat down wh...
I think it would be best if you came down from there before I explained that." "I think I'll stay right where I am, thank you," I said. "And you, you stay where you are, or I'll...I don't know what I'll do, but it will really hurt. You, I mean.
Up until two years ago, I was one of the top-selling real estate agents in the tricounty area. I went to a convention in Boca Raton. I had one too many margaritas, met a tall, pale, and handsome man in the bar, and woke up a vampire." "I was mistaken...
I have only touched one other computer at my friend Marissa's house, and found the experience disconcerting. There was something sinister about the green letters and numbers that flashed on the screen as the computer booted up, and I hated the way Ma...
We've decided that your birthday present will be a car", said Marion. Danny was touched. "But the thing I can't figure out is, why would I need a new car?" "You can't very well gate a girl to the movies, Danny," Leslie replied. "I think you're overlo...
Four girls about Mira's age were standing out on the deck on the upper level of the ferry. They were wearing hoodies, sweatpants and jeans. One of the girls was staring at the screen on her phone. She was talking. He called, but then said he wasn't g...
The girl was grateful to the young man for every bit of flattery; she wanted to linger for a moment in its warmth and so she said, 'You're very good at lying.' 'Do I look like a liar?' 'You look like you enjoy lying to women,' said the girl, and into...
bitch power is the juice, the sweat, the blood that keeps pop music going. Rick James helped me understand the lesson of the eighth-grade dance: Bitch power rules the world. If the girls don't like the music, they sit down and stop the show. You gott...
Evil things happen, and good things happen, and in neither physics nor religion is there an explanation that makes any kind of sense. When the world decides to hurt, there’s no way around it, no magical words that will save the day or turn back tim...
Maybe we were being a bit unrealistic, but we had this hope that if we could just get into the Ivy League, everything would be set. We dreamed of Gothic libraries and leafy green quads and romantic dorms with fireplaces and guys who were not only cut...
There is a rustle of dead leaves. Dried sap, a branch crack, the whirring teeth of Mr. Omaru's saw. My father--my real father--is a limb that got axed off the family tree a long time ago now. My mother coughs and cleans phantom juices off her silver ...
I look for my sister but it's hopeless. The goggles are all fogged up. Every fish burns lantern-bright, and I can't tell the living from the dead. It's all just blurry light, light smeared like some celestial fingerprint all over the rocks and the re...
Then there were the shabti, magical figurines that were supposed to come to life when summoned. A few months ago, I’d fallen for a girl named Zia Rashid, who’d turned out to be a shabti. Falling in love for the first time had been hard enough. Bu...
If you ever put a student at this school in danger again-' 'Oh, I thought you Gallagher Girls were immune to danger.' Despite the hundred girls the filled the foyer, no one moved or gasped or tried to defend our honor. We stood silently, waiting for ...
The responsibility for men's behavior, indeed for civilization itself rests entirely with women here, and in how they dress and behave. Men's animalistic impulses are presumed to be overwhelming and uncontrollable. And as men are brutal, brainless sa...
I grasped the mirror to look closer at the strange girl in the reflection. Yes, I could see some similarities. The shape of the face was the same, but with all the changes it looked unearthly. The reflection was beautiful ... extremely beautiful--sma...
My gosh," I said, "another human being." "You'll never know how human," she said. "Maybe I will," I said. "I could try." I did try, and I do try, and I give you the toast of a happy man: May the warm springs of the girl pool never run dry. --"Girl Po...
