Jess thought for a moment. 'You know those films where people fight up the top of the Empire State Building or up a mountain or whatever? And there's always that bit when the baddie slips off and the hero tries to save him, but, like, the sleeve of t...
His ears caught a sweet chiming noise, and a moment later a warm rush fell over his body. How we doing Rhage? Too hot? Butch's voice. Up close. The cop was in the shower with him. And he smelled Turkish tobacco. V must be in the bathroom too. Hollywo...
She was perfect. I knew this the moment she emerged from my body, white and wet and wailing. Beyond the requisite ten fingers and ten toes, the beating heart, the lungs inhaling and exhaling oxygen, my daughter knew how to scream. She knew how to mak...
Apparently our portmanteau is trending on Twitter." He let out a self-deprecating laugh. "I didn't even know what a portmanteau was before Jukebox Hero. It's a mashup of our names, like Brangelina or Robsten. No idea what ours is -- what do our names...
Soon you catch your first glimpse of a vineyard basking in the sun, its broad leaves silently turning sunlight into sugar, ripening vitis vinifera, the European grapes that make the world’s finest wines. For a moment you might imagine you’ve been...
She dropped her head again on Marius' knees, and her eyelids closed. He thought the poor soul had departed. Eponine remained motionless. All at once, at the very moment when Marius fancied her asleep forever, she slowly opened her eyes in which appea...
Never did she find anything so difficult as to keep herself from losing her temper when she was suddenly disturbed while absorbed in a book. People who are fond of books know the feeling of irritation which sweeps over them at such a moment. The temp...
I am in the night of the stars. The moon is new and I see my way by focusing on the light given off by the Souls of the trees. The night air is thick and dark and sweet, like blueberries. It enters my nose and throat and ears to fill me up with its n...
It took me a moment to realize but I was having an epiphany. I was standing in the middle of Times Square wearing nothing but purple tennis sneakers with the laces pulled out, clutching an empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s in one hand and a shit-eating...
Defeat is for the valiant. Only they will know the honour of losing and the joy of winning I am not here to tell you that defeat is a part of life: we all know that. Only the defeated know Love. Because it is in the realm of love that we fight our fi...
Now we cannot...discover our failure to keep God's law except by trying our very hardest (and then failing). Unless we really try, whatever we say there will always be at the back of our minds the idea that if we try harder next time we shall succeed...
I like the stars. It's the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they're always flaring up and caving in and going out. But from here, I can pretend...I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments. Gods come, an...
Or [take] the old cripple worried about choking on his vitamins or tripping if he tries to hobble over that wide crack in the sidewalk. He won’t be bound by mere experience - he renounces it all together as something confusing; the very moment it o...
Marry me. Nay, marriage will cost us precious moments together. Let us make sweet, passionate love right here. Let me bear your children.” A primal growl signaled Miss Lynn getting over her shock at being thus addressed. She lunged forward; Jack de...
Pretty?' I said, swivelling in the driver's seat to face him, 'you want to ask me out because I'm pretty?' 'Is there a problem with asking you out because you're pretty?' 'I think you blew it,' said Tiger with a grin. 'You should be asking her out be...
The images start to darken and she feels another hunger well up in her, this one having to do with another kind of desire. The desire to feed, to possess, and the aggressive thrill of a predator capturing and killing its prey as it tears into unspoil...
We—all of us—want to feel special. We want to feel the glory that shines on us when we reach beyond our boundaries to grab at something greater, to live a heroic life, if only for a day or a week or a moment. This simple yearning is in us all, ha...
And it came to me then. That we were wonderful traveling companions but in the end no more than lonely lumps of metal in their own separate orbits. From far off they look like beautiful shooting stars, but in reality they're nothing more than prisons...
This was a few weeks ago," Annabeth said. "Percy told me a crazy story about meeting a boy our near Moriches Bay. Apparently this kid used hieroglyphs to cast spells. He helped Percy battle a crocodile monsters." "The Sob of Sobek!" Sadie blurted. "B...
As I stand at the edge of the pit, searching for his body amongst all the others, I am slightly frightened by the violent clashes. It seems almost savagery, the way they throw themselves into each other. As I continue to watch, unable to look away, d...
He went farther; agonised by the reflection, at the moment when it passed by him, so near and yet so infinitely remote, that, while it was addressed to their ears, it knew them not, he would regret, almost, that it had a meaning of its own, an intrin...
