Shergahn and friend lay like poleaxed steers, and the Daranfelian's greasy hair was thick with potatoes, carrots, gravy, and chunks of beef. His companion had less stew in his hair, but an equally large lump was rising fast, and Brandark flipped his ...
That she made a point to eat only the gristliest chicken bits, the burned biscuits, the mealiest potatoes, while she complained that his children were, variously, weak-minded, hysterical or sickly, and seemed to imply that such afflictions were the r...
I do not like postmodernism, postapocalyptic settings, postmortem narrators, or magic realism. I rarely respond to supposedly clever formal devices, multiple fonts, pictures where they shouldn't be—basically, gimmicks of any kind. I find literary f...
Dinner was wonderful. There was a joint of beef, with roast potatoes, golden-crisp on the outside and soft and white inside, buttered greens I did not recognize, although I think now that they might have been nettles, toasted carrots all blackened an...
It was a perfect spring day. The air was sweet and gentle and the sky stretched high, an intense blue. Harold was certain that the last time he had peered through the net drapes of Fossebridge Road (his home), the trees and hedges were dark bones and...
Occasionally, in the stillness of a taxi or an airplane, she would catalog the pleasures she had lost. Cigarettes. Chewing gum. Strong mint toothpaste. Any food with hard edges or sharp corners that could pierce or abrade the inside of her mouth: pot...
Who are you, Martin Eden? he demanded of himself in the looking- glass, that night when he got back to his room. He gazed at himself long and curiously. Who are you? What are you? Where do you belong? You belong by rights to girls like Lizzie Connoll...
I peer through the spectral, polluted, nicotine-sodden windows of my sock at these old lollopers in their kiddie gear. Go home, I say. Go home, lie down, and eat lots of potatoes. I had three handjobs yesterday. None was easy. Sometimes you really ha...
[in the galley; Sheeta is cooking when Louis happens by, standing idly around her] Louis: Ahem. Sheeta: Uh, yes? What is it? Louis: [speechless] Uhm... Sheeta: Yes? Louis: [blurts out] I-I-I finished my work for the moment, and I've come to offer you...
David Van Patten: They don't have a good bathroom to do coke in. Craig McDermott: Are you sure that's Paul Allen over there? Timothy Bryce: Yes. McDufus, I am. Craig McDermott: He's handling the Fisher account. Timothy Bryce: Lucky bastard. Craig McD...
Teacher Kitano: Are my classes boring? Noriko Nakagawa: Yes. Teacher Kitano: How dare you! Noriko Nakagawa: [chuckles] Teacher Kitano: I go into class, you guys look like a pile of potatoes. Slapping them around helped me tell them apart, even got to...
I'd always assumed Beth and I would be friends forever. But then in middle of the eighth grade, the Goldbergs went through the World's Nastiest Divorce. Beth went a little nuts. I don't blame her. When her dad got involved with this twenty-one year o...
There were, of course, other heroes, little ones who did little things to help people get through: merchants who let profits disappear rather than lay off clerks, store owners who accepted teachers' scrip at face value not knowing if the state would ...
She was very ugly - the ugliest person you ever saw in your life! Her hair was scraped into a bun, sticking straight out at the back of her head like a teapot handle; and her face was round and wrinkly, and she had eyes like two little black boot-but...
Brooke stared in surprise. “You brought me lunch?” “I was in the neighborhood.” She checked out the label on the bag. “DMK is twenty minutes from here.” “I was in that neighborhood, and now I’m here,” he said in exasperation. “Ser...
Bruno: [Pavel is nursing Bruno] Where's my mum? Pavel - Jewish servant: She's out. Bruno: When will she back? Pavel - Jewish servant: Soon I expect, but don't worry. Bruno: Will I have I have to go to hospital? Pavel - Jewish servant: No, it's only a...
