He knew by heart every last minute crack on its surface. He had made maps of the ceiling and gone exploring on them; rivers, islands, and continents. He had made guessing games of it and discovered hidden objects; faces, birds, and fishes. He made ma...
Then you don't know. You can't know what it feels like to meet a person and suddenly know without a doubt that the whole purpose of your life so far-every choice you made, every twist of fate along the way-was just a journey to get you to that person...
If the only one who can kill an angel can’t do it, then who can?’ It’s a good question, one that takes me a minute to come up with an answer. ‘Obadiah West can. Him and his freedom fighters. I’m just a teenager.’ ‘History is filled with...
..I don't count Jennifer among my mistakes. She had a severe infection and precious little reserve. Nevertheless, I think of her often. Those minutes of terror and confusion I felt standing powerless in her room served as a visceral reminder througho...
Not everyone born free and equal, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. ...
I tried to keep myself away from him by using con words like "fidelity" and "adultery", by telling myself that he would interfere with my work, that I had him I'd be too happy to write. I tried to tell myself I was hurting Bennett, hurting myself, ma...
You know,' Shane said twenty minutes later, 'I'd feel a whole lot better about the two of us if you didn't think i was the go-to guy for breaking and entering.' She felt a flash of guilt about the breaking-and-entering part -but she had called him- j...
There are no brave men and cowardly men in the world, my son. There are only brave men. To be born, to live, to die—that takes courage enough in itself, and more than enough. We are all brave men and we are all afraid, and what the world calls a br...
You poor girl, what sort of aged, unfriendly Libraries have you met in short life? A silent Library is a sad Library ... A Library should be full of exclamations! ... A Library should be full of now-just-a-minutes and that-can't-be-rights and scienti...
Here we go again. Always a few drinks, but sometimes even sober, we play the unhappiness game; endlessly round and round. Ding dong. Tighter and tighter. On and on. Push me pull you. Come here and i'll tell you how much i hate you. Hang on a minute w...
One minute. You know nothing about him. He probably has his own joys and interests- wife, children, snug little home. That's where we practical fellows'- he smiled-'are more tolerant than you intellectuals. We live and let live, and assume that thing...
Time has become a melding of minutes and months and the feeling of seasons. […] Leon says it is the Bhutan Time Warp and I know what he means. Time does not hurl itself forward at breakneck speed here. Change happens very slowly. A grandmother and ...
Her mum is leaning against the wall, arms crossed, when Summer exits. “Gage left from here a few minutes ago,” she says, tone neutral. “His hair was ruffled.” She gestures with her hand above her head. The haze Gage left Summer in vanishes. S...
I turned on the television and watched a movie about a girl who’d fallen in love with both a vampire and a werewolf. I’d already seen it a million times, so my eyelids grew heavy, fairly quickly. Ten minutes later I was out cold in my bed and dre...
To commit to loving a person for five minutes is easy. To commit to loving a person for the rest of your life, after you have met them, is a strong commitment. But when you commit to loving a person before you meet them and for the rest of your life,...
Maybe you never stop feeling like an eight-year-old in front of your parents. You resolve to be your mature self, to react in this considered way rather than that elemental way, to breathe evenly from the bottom of your stomach and to see your parent...
When you make love you're using up energy; and afterwards you feel happy and don't give a damn for anything. They can't bear you to feel like that. They want you to be bursting with energy all the time. All this marching up and down and cheering and ...
No." I pulled away just enough to lock my eyes with his. His crooked smile sent shivers down my spine. His eyes were a deep blue darkening more as the minutes passing between us were getting hotter. "I will be the one using you, and you'll love every...
One minute she acts like she wants to be with me and I'm the one rejecting her. The next, she's got this barbed wire fence and barking dogs around her, like I can't even ask her the simplest questions." "And here I was assuming you didn't care about ...
I cannot tell you how many quiet mornings I have spent sitting around hotel rooms and furnished apartments in the United States and Mexico, smoking cigarettes, plunking the guitar, and watching --telling myself, "Well, at least I don't have a day job...
The genius of a composer is found in the notes of his music; but analyzing the notes will not reveal his genius. The poet's greatness is contained in his words; yet the study of his words will not disclose his inspiration. God reveals himself in crea...