You don't know how to respond," Ferrin said. "I'll make it easy for you. The safest course of action for your young rebellion would be to toss me off the tallest cliff you can find. I have played a perilous game for years--trading secrets, telling li...
If you had to pack your whole life into a suitcase--not just the practical things, like clothing, but the memories of the people you had lost and the girl you had once been--what would you take? The last photograph you had of your mother? A birthday ...
There was five golden rules. My dad made me write them over and over until I knew them like I knew my own name... Number five: never have a fire in the daytime, 'cause people could see the smoke and come and get us. Number four: if I ever see anyone ...
Whatever happened to me in my life, happened to me as a writer of plays. I'd fall in love, or fall in lust. And at the height of my passion, I would think, 'So is how it feels,' and I would tie it up in pretty words. I my life as if it were happening...
There were two kinds of storms, Alice thought. One was a friendly kind that you could enjoy watching out the window with a cup of tea. It crashed around in the sky with theatricality but no real malice. This storm was the other, the killing kind. The...
Many aspects of our screen-bound lives are bad for our social skills simply because we get accustomed to controlling the information that comes in, managing our relationships electronically, deleting stuff that doesn't interest us. We edit the world;...
It’s hard not to be impatient with the absurdity of the young; they tell us that two and two make four as though it had never occurred to us, and they’re disappointed if we can’t share their surprise when they have discovered that a hen lays an...
The teaching of the sexual tantras all come down to one point. Although desire, of whatever shape or form, seeks completion, there is another kind of union than the one we imagine. In this union, achieved when the egocentric model of dualistic thinki...
Konnor bit his lip and arched into his touch, opening his eyes to his words. “No matter how cruel I am to you, resisting what's between us, you always know when I need you the most,” he explained quietly. “I needed you desperately and you gave ...
I talked to Zrakovi this afternoon,” Alex said, giving me an undecipherable look. “He’s putting me back on sentinel duty for the next few weeks while you handle a special assignment.” Special assignment had an ominous ring to it. “What kind...
To invoke Jesus' name is to place yourself in his presence, to open yourself to his power, his energy. The prayer of Jesus' name actually brings God closer, making him more present. He is always present in some way, since he knows and loves each one ...
Lucy gripped her chilled glass of orange and raspberry juice. When Rebecca talked about Austen, she’d mostly mentioned Mr. Darcy or Mr. Knightley. She hadn’t really thought of the doe-eyed, pale-skinned heroines. On the screen, Anne Elliot walked...
Today is an ephemeral ghost... A strange amazing day that comes only once every four years. For the rest of the time it does not "exist." In mundane terms, it marks a "leap" in time, when the calendar is adjusted to make up for extra seconds accumula...
The days that followed passed slowly. I lay in my hotel room and watched the kind of strange European TV that would probably make perfect sense if I understood the language, but because I didn’t, the programs just seemed dreamlike and baffling. In ...
music is the worst of them - roiling and boiling - overly emotionalized on the one hand, overly intellectuallized on the other. Bach and Mozart indeed! Bach inevitably makes me think of fish in a barrel! round and round and round they go and nothing ...
This is very simple in the world of chicks: some are hoochies, some are not, and some should never try to be. It's no different from the idea of sports. Now, I can go on my little rowing machine for four times a week, twenty-two minutes a time, and I...
Can't it be stopped?" said Lina. She shifted around under her blanket, trying to find a place to sit where rocks weren't digging into her. Maybe it can be stopped at the beginning," Maddy said. "If someone sees what's happening and is brave enough to...
Time is tick, tick, ticking away. How many souls will I capture today? Will they be a challenge or will they be given? Only time will tell as the clock keeps tick, tick, ticking. Your god has arrived with enough hatred for y’all, with enough evil f...
I am thinking that I don't want this to happen. I don't want to die. I don't want my friends to die. And to be honest, as the time slows down and my hands are in the air, I am afforded the chance to think one more thought, and I think about her. I bl...
Daniel, I did not knowwhat I wanted when I was agirl. And then I was a fool in every sense of the word. And now that I am a woman grown, I know that I love you and I want this son of yours, and our children who will come. I have seen a woman break he...
I need a break after school," she told me later. "School is hard because a lot of people are in the room, so you get tired. I freak out if my mom plans a play date without telling me, because I don't want to hurt my friends' feelings. But I'd rather ...