I have a list of pet names for Cap’n so long that it could fill a phone book (if the phone book is for a town with a population of four). I call him Cap’n Boy, Sweet Boyo, My Little Boy (done in a British accent), and when he is misbehaving, You ...
He was what the egotistical part of me had always longed for: danger, sexiness, popularity, style, unpredictability. The kind of man who'd always keep me guessing. Just one night with him and i'd already started to wonder if perhaps i'd spent the las...
Hearts set about finding other hearts the moment they are born, and between them, they weave nets so frightfully strong and tight that you end up bound forever in hopeless knots, even to the shadow of a beast you knew and loved long ago.
It’s a shiny tin can of a day, bright but gray. Welcome to one of Florida’s two overcast days per year. A Florida winter can last a brutally long 48 hours, and in that time the state’s residents don’t know how to cope. Probably there are more...
Five seconds, and my body's humming. I go half-man, half-machine, and my thoughts go straight to touching her more, to how far I want to go, how far she might want to go, and damn, I start to hurt. No amount of music or hard work will fix this. My bo...
Somewhere, on the long road that wound through those four years, the girl with her sachet & dancing slippers had slipped away & there was left a woman with sharp green eyes, who counted pennies & turned her hands to many menial tasks, a woman to whom...
The women watched the men, watched to see whether the break had come at last. The women stood silently and watched. And where a number of men gathered together, the fear went from their faces, and anger took its place. And the women sighed with relie...
Why did they believe? Because they saw miracles. Things one man took as chance, a man of faith took as a sign. A loved one recovering from disease, a fortunate business deal, a chance meeting with a long lost friend. It wasn't the grand doctrines or ...
I learned a long time ago with you that folks who were trying to be kind would rather do it with a macaroni-and-cheese bake than any personal involvement. You hand off a serving dish and you've done your job - no need to get personally involved, and ...
He would give up his wings and heaven for her, a woman he loved but would never truly belong to him, a woman he could never keep. He’d fall and be banished from the only home he’d ever known, but he could never give her up. He’d keep her, enjoy...
He was the old breed of Filipino, almost extinct, who required that he deserve what he received; who would feel guilt, not only shame or embarrassment; who accounted for each day in the office and observed public trust as if it were a word of God. Bu...
The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someo...
She realized that Rowan saw each of those thoughts and more as he reached into his tunic and pulled out a dagger. Her dagger. He extended it to her, it's long blade gleaming as if he'd been secretly polishing and caring for it these months. And when ...
Every novel is brand-new. It’s never been written before in the history of the world. At the same time, it’s merely the latest in a long line of narratives—not just novels, but narratives generally—since humans began telling stories to themse...
We live in a culture that has, for centuries now, cultivated the idea that the skeptical person is always smarter than the one who believes. You can be almost as stupid as a cabbage, as long as you doubt. The fashion of the age has identified mental ...
It was strange to have those papers signed. Like any big project or crisis that takes every waking and non-waking moment in your life, it was odd to have it concluded. A move, a college degree, a wedding--something long-strived-for is completed, what...
There was always a big party on the night before anyone left for the States. They called it an American wake, because the whole community stayed up to keep the emigrants company through their last night on the island, just as they would have bidden f...
A brick could be used to commit genocide on a small patch of grass, if you lay the brick down on the lawn and leave it there long enough. But I do not condone this monstrosity of lawntrocity. (Lawn + atrocity—clever, no? OK, no, it’s not so cleve...
Anyone who knew Violet well could tell she was thinking hard, because her long hair was tied up in a ribbon to keep it out of her eyes. Violet had a real knack for inventing and building strange devices, so her brain was often filled with images of p...
(Regarding check-cashing places): It's hitting me how poor this really is: I'm standing in a long line to pay someone to give me my pay. So, technically, they get paid before I do, and it's my damn check.
nothing's news. it's the same old thing in disguise. only one thing comes without a disguise and you only see it once, or maybe never. like getting hit by a freight train. makes us realize that all our moaning about long lost girls in gingham dresses...