Emma: You can demand that Pettibone retain my services, but you cannot make similar demands of the parents of the students. They will not entrust the education of their daughters to a woman who has removed her clothing for an artist, no matter how ex...
Right, I totally forgot. I can’t wait to taste the flummery.” “I’m not sure if I want to know what that is,” Manning said. “It’s a sort of jelly, but made into a mold that is shaped like a castle or a tower or just a”—Debbie Mae wig...
The sentences still form in my mind, and thoughts still do their little show-off dance, but I know my thought patterns so well now that they don't bother me anymore. My thoughts have become like old neighbors, kind of bothersome but ultimately rather...
Sometimes I like to think I live with ghosts. Not from my past, but wispy bits of ideas and books that hang in the air like silk puppets. Sometimes I think I see my own ideas, floating around too, but they usually don't last that long. They're more l...
What a host of little incidents, all deep-buried in the past -- problems that had once been urgent, arguments that had once been keen, anecdotes that were funny only because one remembered the fun. Did any emotion really matter when the last trace of...
Is this some kind of joke?" "That's for me to know and you to find out." "Maybe you think it's funny to put up signs about people who want to commit suicide." "Are about to?" "And what if I was?" "I wouldn't tell you the gorgeous reasons have discove...
Mrs Guinea answered my letter and invited me to lunch at her home. That was where I saw my first finger-bowl. The water had a few cherry blossoms floating in it, and I thought it must be some clear sort of Japanese after-dinner soup and ate every bit...
Woodward said that he had told no one the name of Deep Throat. Mrs. Graham paused. 'Tell me,' she said. Woodward froze. He said he would give her the name if she wanted. He was praying she wouldn't press it. Mrs. Graham laughed, touched his arm and s...
Oh, for heaven’s sake, Sirius, Dumbledore said no!” A bearlike black dog had appeared at Harry’s side as Harry clambered over the various trunks cluttering the hall to get to Mrs. Weasley. “Oh honestly,” said Mrs. Weasley despairingly. “W...
There is nothing else in magic but the wild thought of the bird as it casts itself into the void. There is no creature upon the earth with such potential for magic. Even the least of them may fly straight out of this world and come by chance to the O...
Perhaps I am too tame, too domestic a magician. But how does one work up a little madness? I meet with mad people every day in the street, but I never thought before to wonder how they got mad. Perhaps I should go wandering on lonely moors and barren...
Perhaps this is the purpose of detective investigations, real and fictional -- to transform sensation, horror and grief into a puzzle, and then to solve the puzzle, to make it go away. 'The detective story,' observed Raymond Chandler in 1949, 'is a t...
I am quite likely to re-act to the opposite extreme - to feel rapturously that the world is beautiful and mere existence something to thank God for. I suppose our 'blues' are the price we have to pay for our temperament. 'The gods don't allow us to b...
I will not deny that my heart has long occupied itself with the most tender feelings for another. So strong were these impulses that I indulged myself by thinking that if I could not have him whom I admired whom I will admit it now when I would not b...
From Time for College - Mr. Chiardi & Other Stories It was time for Junior to go to college. He’d sprouted pubic hair and was eyeing all the girls. “I want to go to college,” he said. “Yes,” I replied, “It’s time.” His mother, my wife...
He kept one eye on Matt as he talked. He could tell Matt was close to orgasm by the way he title his head to the side and bit his lower lip. "And what about your partner, Mr. Tucker?" Troy asked. Chris raised his eyebrows in surprise and Mr. Waters g...
Need 'nether whiskey. Whiskey chaser. Gotta get two men drunk.' Mr. Cohan placed both hands on the bar. 'Mr. Walsh,' he said severely, 'in Gavagan's we will serve a man a drink to wet his whistle, or even because his old woman has pasted him with a d...
That’s not necessary,” Mr. Bradshaw said, “although you are all perfectly welcome in the guest rooms upstairs, I won’t ask you to lie to your-” “Mr. Bradshaw.” Nathan grinned. “You’ve been asking us to lie to our parents from the mo...
Zane," she moaned. "Please touch me." "I will. I'm going to touch every inch of you until I know what makes you sigh and what makes you giggle and what makes you beg me to never stop. I'm going to make you shudder and scream so that long after tonigh...
Nurse Noakes: You are going to be sorry in ways you cannot even imagine. Mr. Meeks: [shrieks to draw attention of the crowd in the pub] Are there no true Scotsmen in the house? Those there English gerrunts are trampling all over my God-given rights! ...
Tania: Mr. Williams. [pause] Tania: *Mr. Williams!* Williams: For me? Tania: [Tania nods] Williams: You shouldn't have [pause] Williams: but, [pause] Williams: I'll take you darling, [pause] Williams: and you, [pause] Williams: and you, [pause] Willi...
