So how long have you been together? Two months?' 'Five.' 'Five? Jesus, Steve, you might as well get married. I should buy a hat.' 'Don't. They give away your Spock ears.' She laughed. 'This is the Romanian girl?' 'Croatian.' 'Right. She's a painter?'...
You hardly asked if I was okay the entire time we were together.” (Jessie) “Okay? You wanted me to ask you if you were okay? Jessie, I saw you! How could I think for one second you were okay? Do you think it’s normal for me to watch a girl bein...
You know what I used to dream about, in stir?" His voice was hoarse, the words low and fast and faintly guttural. "I used to dream about you. You were the only clean and good and decent thing left in my life, and I would dream about you. I used to dr...
And I may not omit here a special work of God's providence. There was a proud and very profane young man [aboard the Mayflower], one of the seamen, of a lusty, able body, which made him the more haughty; he would always be contemning the poor people ...
For the next nine months, Sylvia would report on campus trends, politics, tastes, style. It was an honor, but it was grueling. Sylvia was overworked. She had boyfriend problems. She longed for Europe. She broke her leg in a skiing accident. Her best ...
Researchers began finding that habit replacement worked pretty well for many people until the stresses of life—such as finding out your mom has cancer, or your marriage is coming apart—got too high, at which point alcoholics often fell off the wa...
My cousin Rebecca teaches comparative English literature at Midlands College. She’s always seeing Austen in the world around her.” “Exactly.” Theresa beamed. “Life is easier to understand when you think of it in terms of Pride and Prejudice...
At least ten times as many people died from preventable, poverty-related diseases on September 11, 2011, as died in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on that black day. The terrorist attacks led to trillions of dollars b...
It is a fact that if an impulse from one or the other sphere comes up and is not lived out, then it goes back down and tends to develop anti-human qualities. What should have been a human impulse becomes a tiger-like impulse. For instance, a man has ...
And speaking of this wonderful machine: [840] I’m puzzled by the difference between Two methods of composing: , the kind Which goes on solely in the poet’s mind, A testing of performing words, while he Is soaping a third time one leg, and , The o...
When the mind, for want of being sufficiently reduced by recollection at our first engaging in devotion, has contracted certain bad habits of wandering and dissipation, they are difficult to overcome, and commonly draw us, even against our wills, to ...
I’m not a boy!” Dashan retorted hotly. “How dare you speak to me like that!” “I’ll speak to you any way I see fit. You are sorely lacking in discipline and wouldn’t know danger if it bit you in the arse!” Ryland looked towards the doo...
This is the difference between someone whose heart is purified and sound and one whose heart is impure and corrupt. Impure people oppress, and the pure-hearted not only forgive their oppressors, but elevate them in status and character. In order to p...
How could she have gotten herself here? To this place where she stood by while the man she adored checked out things to share with his wife? You knew what you were getting into. But that wasn’t really true. One never knew, not entirely, not until i...
I know positively - yes Rieux I can say I know the world inside out as no one on earth is free from it. And I know too that we must keep endless watch on ourselves lest in careless moment we breathe in somebody's face and fasten the infection on him....
We have negative mental habits that come up over and over again. One of the most significant negative habits we should be aware of is that of constantly allowing our mind to run off into the future. Perhaps we got this from our parents. Carried away ...
A girl stood before him in midstream, alone and still, gazing out to sea. She seemed like one whom magic had changed into the likeness of a strange and beautiful seabird. Her long slender bare legs were delicate as a crane's and pure save where an em...
To be charitable, one may admit that the religious often seem unaware of how insulting their main proposition actually is. Exchange views with a believer even for a short time, and let us make the assumption that this is a mild and decent believer wh...
I should say we’d reach England by Tuesday or thereabouts, with a decent wind behind us. It would be a lot quicker than that if we could just sail straight there, but I was looking at the nautical charts, and there’s a dirty great sea serpent rig...
What a shame," signed the Dodecahedron. "They're so very useful. Why, did you know that if a beaver two feet long with a tail a foot and a half long can build a dam twelve feet high and six feet wide in two days, all you would need to build Boulder D...
A long time ago, there was a little girl called Mary. Now Mary, she was warned several times not to go to her neighbor’s house. Her neighbor was a grandmother. But Mary hardly listened, so she snuck off one night to spy on her. She tried the front ...