In all well-organised brains, the predominating idea—and there always is one—is sure to be the last thought before sleeping, and the first upon waking in the morning. Andrea had scarcely opened his eyes when his predominating idea presented itsel...
The backstreet cafe in Casablanca was for me a place of mystery, a place with a soul, a place with danger. There was a sense that the safety nets had been cut away, that each citizen walked upon the high wire of this, the real world. I longed not mer...
As with men, it has always seemed to me that books have their own peculiar destinies. They go towards the people who are waiting for them and reach them at the right moment. They are made of living material and continue to cast light through the dark...
Crafternoon is about making what you want, how you want it, to the best of your ability. And even if you may not think of yourself as a rock star of creativity, it's there inside you. At Crafternoon, you are a CraftStar.
I was like you once, long time ago. I believed in the dignity of man. Decency. Humanity. But I was lucky. I found out the truth early, boy. And what is the truth, Stark? It's all very simple. There's no such thing as the dignity of man. Man is a base...
The blade sings to me. Faintly, so soft against my ears, its voice calms my worries and tells me that one touch will take it all away. It tells me that I just need to slide a long horizontal cut, and make a clean slice. It tells me the words that I h...
A civilization, when the moment has come for crowds to acquire a high hand over it, is at the mercy of too many chances to endure for long. Could anything postpone for a while the hour of its ruin, it would be precisely the extreme instability of the...
While I was fearing it, it came, But came with less of fear, Because that fearing it so long Had almost made it dear. There is a fitting a dismay, A fitting a despair. 'T is harder knowing it is due, Than knowing it is here. The trying on the utmost,...
now it’s computers and more computers and soon everybody will have one, 3-year-olds will have computers and everybody will know everything about everybody else long before they meet them. nobody will want to meet anybody else ever again and everybo...
They say eyes clear with age, As dew clarifies air To sharpen evenings, As if time put an edge Round the last shape of things To show them there; The many-levelled trees, The long soft tides of grass Wrinkling away the gold Wind-ridden waves- all the...
Clary?" he thought. Her voice came through, tinged with alarm. "What is it? What's happened? Did my mom find out I'm gone?" "Not yet," he thought back. "Is Azazel the cat from the Smurfs?" There was a long pause. "That's Azrael, Simon. And no more us...
We say we long for intimacy with God and others, and yet we structure our lives so that this becomes impossible. One might think we are avoiding intimacy, that maybe we really like our finely managed lives just the way they are.
Miracles are just formal requests, Shara thinks wildly. It's like having a form preprinted and filled out and handing it in to get exactly what you want! But you don't always have to do it that way! You can make it up as you go along, so long as you ...
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to ackn...
Excellent. I've been told I have a lovely, melodic reading voice." He flipped the book open to the front page, where the title was printed in ornate script. Across from it was a long dedication, the ink faded now and barely legible, though Clary coul...
A person is not like a thing that you put down in one place and leave, a person moves, thinks, asks, questions, doubts, investigates, probes, and while it is true that, out of a long habit of resignation, he sooner or later ends up looking as if he h...
The last two days I’ve been on long bus rides, driven through the countryside on the back of a motorbike, and crossed rivers on wooden boats, traversing currents into a different century. It’s late and dark, but I’m so close now. My uncle died ...
The queen watched Annwyl for several long moments. “You are an interesting . . . thing. I think I understand what my son sees in you.” Annwyl swallowed. “Son?” “You didn’t know?” Annwyl slowly shook her head. “Yes. I think all my chil...
Lorcan rubbed his head. “Am I asking too much to want the little bitch dead? Am I?” It seemed Hefaidd-Hen learned long ago not to answer certain questions. “All I want is for her to suffer a painful, horrifying death. And for her head to be on ...
I ate breakfast in the kitchen by candle-light, and then drove the five miles to the station through the most glorious October colouring. The sun came up on the way, and the swamp maples and dogwood glowed crimson and orange and the stone walls and c...
In my life long study of human beings, I have found that no matter how hard they try, they have found no way yet to prevent the arrival of Monday morning. And they do try, of course, but Monday always comes, and all the drones have to scuttle back to...
