How could I have been so ignorant? she thinks. So stupid, so unseeing, so given over to carelessness. But without such ignorance, such carelessness, how could we live? If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to hap...
What makes humans human is precisely that they do not know the future. That is why they do the fateful and amusing things they do: who can say how anything will turn out? Therein lies the only hope for redemption, discovery, and-let’s be frank—fu...
It would be autumn, and our fathers would be out threshing in the fields. We would walk through the mulberry groves, past the big loquat tree and the old lotus pond, where we used to catch tadpoles in the spring. Our dogs would come running up to us....
But you see, Crumb, it is hard to give up what you have worked at since you were a boy. There were some Italian visitors once, they were cheering us on, Brandon and myself, and they thought that Achilles and Hector had come back to life. So they said...
The music glides between the pores of your skin to bubble through your veins in place of blood, and you can't help but clutch the mic with both trembling hands and let the song flow out of you like blood from a wound. In those moments, when the music...
From "Wetness and Water" How does a part of the world leave the world? How can wetness leave water? Do not try to put out a fire by throwing on more fire. Do not wash a wound with blood. No matter how fast you run, your shadow more than keeps up. Som...
You do that, and I take back every nasty thing I've ever said about you." He grinned, his mood changing from serious to wicked in an instant. "Why? I'm all those things and more." I shook my head. Ian was more proud of his depravity than anyone I'd m...
Dear Sir, poor sir, brave sir." he read, "You are an experiment by the Creator of the Universe. You are the only creature in the entire Universe who has free will. You are the only one who has to figure out what to do next - and why. Everybody else i...
Try not to take it personally if the mother criticizes you or tells you to stop doing something that you expected to be helpful. Just say, “Sorry,” and stop doing it. Don’t try to explain why you did it or express frustration with her. She is r...
Each thing organizes the space around it, rebuffing or sidling up against other things; each thing calls, gestures, beckons to other beings or battles them for our attention; things expose themselves to the sun or retreat among the shadows, shouting ...
In retrospect, I didn’t really want to be a slut. What I wanted and needed was a therapist who would consent to fucking me, but I doubted my parents’ insurance would have covered that. I had a lot to figure out for myself and I did that by making...
Lovers do things together! They rent videos, they ride Ferris wheels, they go out for pizza, they play Scrabble. They . . . they talk!' 'Talk?' He lifted his head and frowned, his eyes puzzled. 'We talk all the time, Raine. I've never had such talkat...
Reason is up to these demands because it is an open-ended combinatorial system, an engine for generating an unlimited number of new ideas. Once it is programmed with a basic self-interest and an ability to communicate with others, its own logic will ...
In the country whereto I go I shall not see the face of my friend Nor her hair the color of sunburnt grasses; Together we shall not find The land on whose hills bends the new moon In air traversed of birds. What have I thought of love? I have said, "...
We were in a state of suspended animation: Oblivious to the world around us, time seemingly standing still, and our perceptions focused only on a couple specific parts of our anatomy. In fact, only one part. My tongue seemed numb, but the feeling in ...
Could it be? Samantha Kingston? Home? On a Friday?” I roll my eyes. “I don’t know. Did you do a lot of acid in the sixties? Could be a flashback.” “I was two years old in 1960. I came too late for the party.” He leans down and pecks me on...
Struggling transforms her captor into a Chinese finger trap. She’s suffocating. Sucking in air without relief. Her lungs expand. Contract. Expand. They fill with lies and broken promises. With despair and lost hope. Each inhale is empty. Invisible ...
Former Journey lead singer Steve Perry was a lifelong Giants fan who grew up in the San Joaquin Valley. When the Dodgers started showing him on the big screen during their nightly sing-along, Perry protested by sneaking out of his seats before the ei...
... the divine knowing - what the Father knows, and what the Word says in response to that knowing, and what the Spirit broods upon under the speaking of the Word - all that eternal intellectual activity isn't just daydreaming. It's the cause of ever...
He looked down at the books. There was a long silence. Then he raised his eyes and directed his gaze at Gershon, and Gershon did not look away. "I will tell you, Loran what is of importance is not that there may be nothing. We have always acknowledge...
He gave it its present name, and lived here shut up: day and night poring over the wicked heaps of papers in the suit, and hoping against hope to disentangle it from its mystification and bring it to a close. In the meantime, the place became dilapid...
