The inaugural morning at Merston High was officially over. It was no longer a mysterious place in Melody's imagination, filled with endless possibilities and hooks on which to hang hopes for a better tomorrow. It was completely - boringly - normal. L...
After each dream, Frankie woke with a start, soaked in tears. But she found no relief in the peaceful silence of her room, because there everything was real. And the guilt was too immense to bear. Each time she opened her eyes, she'd quickly shut the...
Awake, my soul! Why should I give hours and days any longer to the vain world, when there is such a world of misery at my very door? Lord, put thine own strength in me; confirm every good resolution; forgive my past long life of uselessness and folly...
Do they expect us to have sex right here on the kitchen table?" Gunner, who was chewing a piece of toast, paused, considered the idea, and then shook his head. "Too messy. We'd get sugar everywhere. Plus, Cressy might walk in, and then I'd have to ge...
Even she hair itself rough and wiry; long black knotty locks springing from she scalp and corkscrewing all the way down she back... The only thing soft about Tan-Tan is she big molasses-brown eyes that could look on you, and your heart would beat tim...
And yet sometimes it seems to me I am there, among the incriminated scenes, tottering under the attributes peculiar to the lords of creation ... Yes, more than once I almost took myself for the other, all but suffered after his fashion, the space of ...
Even though I seem not human, a mute shelf of glucose, bottled blood, machinery to swell the lung and pump the heart—even so, do not put out my life. Let me still glow.
As a society, our decision to heap shame and contempt upon those who struggle and fail in a system designed to keep them locked up and locked out says far more about ourselves than it does about them.
Even as she listened to murmurs of support, she heard the relief in other people’s voices, the immense gratitude that it wasn’t their child who had died. She heard I’m so sorry until she despised those words as she had never despised anything i...
I am so fond of tea that I could write a whole dissertation on its virtues. It comforts and enlivens without the risks attendant on spirituous liquors. Gentle herb! Let the florid grape yield to thee. Thy soft influence is a more safe inspirer of soc...
Intelligent people know they are intelligent. They also know that one person cannot know all, hence a person is not stupid simply because he is ignorant of one thing or another. They know that, to another intelligent person, they will not appear stup...
It's not about changing--it's about growing, together," he said, like the wise soul that he was. "I wanted to let you know--that I am with you. Always. Forever. We don't have to be separated by the sun, school, or even the night. Now I'm just a click...
And yet it was not the mystery, but the comedy of suffering that struck him; its absolute uselessness, its grotesque want of meaning. How incoherent everything seemed! How lacking in all harmony! He was amazed at the discord between the shallow optim...
I was a good lawyer , and most days that was enough. I was aware, however, that I took refuge in my profession, as unlikely as that seemed considering the amount of human suffering I dealt with. It offered me a role to escape into, from what I no lon...
Consider this simple thought. The Lord could have made everything brown. Brown grass, brown flowers, brown sky, brown sea. But He didn't. There is much for us to enjoy in the variety and the beauty of His creation. These things illustrate His essenti...
It was here that the thaum, hitherto believed to be the smallest possible particle of magic, was succesfully demonstrated to be made up of /resons/ (Lit.: 'Thing-ies') or reality fragments. Currently research indicates that each reson is itself made ...
A thought is harmless unless we believe it. It’s not our thoughts, but our attachment to our thoughts, that causes suffering. Attaching to a thought means believing that it’s true, without inquiring. A belief is a thought that we’ve been attach...
Of course, even though Peter and I have had our disagreements, we share a bond I'd defend to the death if needs be. If all goes according to the natural order of things, siblings will know us longer than our parents, longer than our spouses and frien...
I was impressed with Jack [Kerouac]’s commitment to serious writing at the expense of everything else in his life. At a time when the middle class was burgeoning with new homes, two-tone American cars, and black-and-white TVs, when American happine...
Better be," Eve said. She mock-bit at his finger. "I could totally date somebody else, you know." "And I could rent out your room." "And I could put your game console on eBay." "Hey," Shane protested. "Now you're just being mean.
The angel has confided in me that he is going to ask the Lord if he can become Spider-Man. [...] The children need heroes, he says. I think he just wants to swing from buildings in tight red jammies.
