He sidestepped down the alley and into another one connected to a small garage, where a raccoon with matching black eyes just like his own halted in mid-step next to a trash can. They stared at each other, not moving or making a sound. 'There there, ...
The problem is knowing when what you are about to do will make a difference. I’m not only speaking of the small actions that, cumulatively, over time, or in great numbers, alter the course of events in ways too chaotic or subtle to trace ... if eve...
What you need to know is this: before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we've l...
Before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve moved towar...
Love, experienced thus, is a constant challenge; it is not a resting place, but moving, growing, working together; even when there is harmony or conflict, joy or sadness, is secondary to the fundamental fact that two people experience themselves, rat...
Hardly unaware of his image, Bradlee even cultivated it. He delighted in displaying his street savvy, telling a reporter to get his ass moving and talk to some real cops, not lieutenants and captains behind a desk; then rising to greet some visiting ...
Aiden moved so quickly that one second I was in his lap, and the next I was on my back and he was hovering above me. He lowered his head so that his lips brushed mine softly. That one all-too-wuick touch nearly undid me. "I love you," he said, and th...
You raise them half-decent, and they grow up and leave. They move to Miami or California-- someplace with gourmet groceries and nude beaches because you've reared them to cook good and be liberal minded. It's just the opposite with your failures-- th...
Be game--take a chance--don't hide behind veils and veils of discretion... Go forward with what you have to say, expressing things as you see them. You are new evidence, fresh and young. Your work, the spirit of youth, you are the progress of human e...
Being in grief, it turns out, is not unlike being in love. In both states, the imagination's entirely occupied with one person. The beloved dwells at the heart of the world, and becomes a Rome: the roads of feeling all lead to him, all proceed from h...
That's the catch about betrayal, of course: that it feels good, that there's something immensely pleasurable about moving from a complicated relationship which involves minor atrocities on both sides to a nice, neat, simple one where one person has d...
Even the most blatant assholes seemed to function in a state of grace when confronted with the brutal loss of a loved one. They moved through the world differently than other people. When they looked at you, you had the feeling that they were really ...
Personally, I always wondered about authors and celebrities who loudly declared there was no God. It was usually when they were healthy and popular and being listened to by crowds. What happens, I wondered, in the quiet moments before death? By then,...
Failure is always louder than success. But there is an accumulation of all the things you don’t do wrong, and that becomes your confidence. You can even get to the point where that confidence lasts longer than the dance. Seconds at first. Then minu...
He asked, 'Croesus, who told you to attack my land and meet me as an enemy instead of a friend?' The King replied, 'It was caused by your good fate and my bad fate. It was the fault of the Greek gods, who with their arrogance, encouraged me to march ...
Once we have isolated the computational and neurological correlates of access-consciousness, there is nothing left to explain. It's just irrational to insist that sentience remains unexplained after all the manifestations of sentience have been accou...
They dig holes from time to time,' the Colonel explains. 'It is probably for them what chess is for me. It has no special meaning, does not transport them anywhere. All of us dig at our own pure holes. We have nothing to achieve by our activities, no...
Fucking Hallmark never wrote anything for how I felt then. When Metallica and the rest of the metal community pitched in to pay for Acrassicauda, the Iraqi heavy metal band, to move to the US is the only thing that comes close. And maybe the late-bre...
Maybe what River had meant was that time itself was like a river, moving steadily forward, and you got to be in a new river every day, every hour. All my life I'd felt like a lake. A lake where everyhting was contained, forever. All my experiences, a...
Because I'm moved in writing to be irrepressible. Writing to you seems like some holy cause, cause there's not enough female irrepressibility written down. I've fused my silence and repression with the entire female gender's silence and repression. I...
This was a part he didn't like. It made him feel like a jailer, or a kidnapper. "Another sin, another string of Hail Marys," he said, sitting on the edge of the bed. So much was riding on this. It could all blow up in their faces. If he was still a b...
