It’s me, you fool. Who do you think it is? I’m coming in.” He was already naked. She turned away from him as he slipped in by her side but he caught her in his arms and felt her body thaw his belly and thighs. That was all, just to lie there li...
I read once that you need two things to be happy. Any two of health, money and love. You can cover the absence of one with the other two. I drew comfort from this idea while I was fully bodied, employed, and unloved. It made me feel I wasn't missing ...
Tell her I'm sorry I sold the diamond, eh?" Sammy said. "I broke my promise. When she disappeared in Alaska... ah, so long ago, I finally used that diamond, moved to Texas as I always dreamed. I started my machine shop. Started my family! It was a go...
oxygen Everything needs it: bone, muscles, and even, while it calls the earth its home, the soul. So the merciful, noisy machine stands in our house working away in its lung-like voice. I hear it as I kneel before the fire, stirring with a stick of i...
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 I throw back my head and howl People (women mostly) say But you've always done what you want, You always get your way - A perfectly vile and foul Inversion of all that's been. What the old ratbags mean Is I've never done what I don't. So the shi...
To the rocket scientist, you are a problem. You are the most irritating piece of machinery he or she will ever have to deal with. You and your fluctuating metabolism, your puny memory, your frame that comes in a million different configurations. You ...
The real purpose of the scientific method is to make sure Nature hasn't misled you into thinking you know something you don't actually know. There's not a mechanic or scientist or technician alive who hasn't suffered from that one so much that he's n...
Stories don’t teach us to be good; it isn’t as simple as that. They show us what it feels like to be good, or to be bad. They show us people like ourselves doing right things and wrong things, acting bravely or acting meanly, being cruel or being...
Kalkbrenner has made me an offer; that I should study with him for three years, and he will make something really - really out of me. I answered that I know how much I lack; but that I cannot exploit him, and three years is too much. But he has convi...
Trautman: I don't think you understand. I didn't come to rescue Rambo from you. I came here to rescue you from him. Teasle: Well, we all appreciate your concern Colonel, I will try to be extra careful! Trautman: I'm just amazed he allowed any of your...
Tank: Here you go, buddy; "Breakfast of Champions." Mouse: If you close your eyes, it almost feels like you're eating runny eggs. Apoc: Yeah, or a bowl of snot. Mouse: Do you know what it really reminds me of? Tasty Wheat. Did you ever eat Tasty Whea...
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Colonel... that Coca-Cola machine. I want you to shoot the lock off it. There may be some change in there. Colonel "Bat" Guano: That's private property. Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Colonel! Can you possibly imagine what ...
Damien: How many British soldiers in the country, Tim? Tim: Too many. Damien: How many? Teddy: About ten thousand, Damien. Damien: Ten Thousand. Tans, artillery units, machine-gun car, cavalry... Teddy: And many more besides. What's your point, Damie...
Selfridge: Look. You're supposed to be winning the hearts and minds of the natives. Isn't that the whole point of your little puppet show? If you walk like them, you talk like them, they'll trust you. We build them a school, teach them English. But a...
Leaning against my car after changing the oil, I hold my black hands out and stare into them as if they were the faces of my children looking at the winter moon and thinking of the snow that will erase everything before they wake. In the garage, my w...
Reality is a very subjective affair. I can only define it as a kind of gradual accumulation of information; and as specialization. If we take a lily, for instance, or any other kind of natural object, a lily is more real to a naturalist than it is to...
There are all sorts of families," Tom's grandmother had remarked, and over the following few weeks Tom became part of the Casson family, as Micheal and Sarah and Derek-from-the-camp had done before him. He immediately discovered that being a member o...
Despite my resistance to hyperbole, the LHC belongs to a world that can only be described with superlatives. It is not merely large: the LHC is the biggest machine ever built. It is not merely cold: the 1.9 kelvin (1.9 degrees Celsius above absolute ...
Never mind that. What's going on with you and Heath?" Annabelle pulled a little wide-eyed innocence out of her rusty bag of college acting skills. "What do you mean? Business." "Don't give me that. We've been friends too long." She switched to a furr...
