MacKenzie started to look frightened and Valor looked like he was going to kill somebody if they didn't stop scaring his girlfriend. At the same time, Victor looked like he was ready to step in and take control of the situation. And if these suits de...
That's why I've just gone on … collecting this particular kind of stuff – what you might call riff-raff. There's not a book here, Lawford, that hasn't at least a glimmer of the real thing in it – just Life, seen through a living eye, and felt. ...
I’ve always found that the better the book I’m reading, the smarter I feel, or, at least, the more able I am to imagine that I might, someday, become smarter.
Are you smarter than my chicken?” cried a weathered, wild-haired woman holding a nonplussed bird over her head. At her feet was a wooden board covered with numbers and arcane symbols. “Lay your bets! Test your wits against a trained fowl! One cop...
It was a sad place to be at war; never in all my life have I seen corn grow so fast, nor grass fatten beasts to such weight. The herders of Raphana would have sold their grandmothers for such bounty, although they might have claimed them back again a...
The illusion of the seventh veil was the illusion that you could get somebody else to do it for you. To think for you. To hang on your cross. The priest, the rabbi, the imam, the swami, the philosophical novelist were traffic cops, at best. They migh...
An airplane crossed the sky, and she imagined its interior-people packed in rows like eggs in a carton, the chemical smell of the toilets, pretzels in foil pouches, cans hiss-popping open, black oval of night sky embedded in the rattling walls. How s...
We might laugh at the notion of plastic tea sets in the jungle, but it is a time-honored ritual for Western travelers to collect preindustrial artifacts to use as home decorations...Possession of primitive artifacts suggests worldly knowledge, just a...
Hey, if you'd wanted to avoid 'this,' you shouldn't have lured me last night. Now it's too late. You might as well avoid the long, drawn-out pain and get it over with quickly. Sort of like taking off a Band-Aid. Or cutting off a limb." "Wow, who says...
There’s one thing about getting somebody to help you though…you got to take whatever it looks like - their kind of help. And you can’t be choosin what you like and don’t like. Help is a take it or leave it kind of thing, and if you can’t ta...
Once you’re out of the classroom, you might vow never to open another book, after being force-fed their contents for so many years. But know this: Books are the most worthy companions to take with you on this bitter-sweet journey known as life.
This was a brave statement but innocently absurd. No one will ever understand Auschwitz. What I might have set down with more accuracy would have been: Auschwitz itself remains inexplicable. The most profound statement yet made about Auschwitz was no...
In Canada, when we speak of water, we're speaking of ourselves. Canadians are known to be unextravagant, and one explanation of this might be that we know that wasted water means a diminished collective soul; polluted waters mean a sickened soul. Wat...
Your partner may have injuries that you can't repair. Your partner may be trapped in a dark room without windows. Your life narrative might bring him more relief than an opiate. Some people make better windows than windows. Your kind words and enligh...
I would not wish depression on anybody. And yet, it taught me a lot. I have not become suddenly mawkishly grateful for my life but I am more interested in it, more engaged you might say. When you have spent long years in the dark, there is joy in see...
Why don't you like getting close?' Marianne insisted. 'Is it because you might get hurt?' Owen shook his head. He still couldn't look at her. 'It's because it's never permanent. Everything dies. Everything gets destroyed. Even love. So we just make t...
But Mrs. Brockington, old, alone, almost crippled by rheumatism, had faith and courage. She had more. She had a warm serenity, and when Ellen was with her, she almost had it too. For goodness is catching. Mrs. Brockington was further on the road Elle...
Cats were often familiars to workers of magic because to anyone used to wrestling with self-willed, wayward, devious magic--which was what all magic was--it was rather soothing to have all the same qualities wrapped up in a small, furry, generally at...
The act of writing, it seems to me, makes up a shelter, allows space to what would otherwise be hidden, crossed out, mutilated. Sometimes writing can work toward a reparation, making a sheltering space for the mind. Yet it feeds off ruptures, tears i...
But is all this true?" said Brutha. Didactylos shrugged. "Could be. Could be. We are here and it is now. The way I see it is, after that, everything tends towards guesswork." "You mean you don't KNOW it's true?" said Brutha. "I THINK it might be," sa...
Logan looks up, registers my face and smiles immediately. I hold onto the back of a chair to steady my legs. Jeez, he’s got a nice smile; dimples appear in his chiseled cheeks and there is familiarity and warmth in his eyes. Real warmth, the likes ...
