Pecans are not cheap, my hons. In fact, in the South, the street value of shelled pecans just before holiday baking season is roughly that of crack cocaine. Do not confuse the two. It is almost impossible to make a decent crack cocaine tassie, I am t...
I had always insisted that a good education was a synthesis of book learning and involvement in social action, that each enriched the other. I wanted my students to know that the accumulation of knowledge, while fascinating in itself, is not sufficie...
John dear!" said I in the gentlest voice, "the key is down by the front steps, under a plantain leaf!" That silenced him for a few moments. Then he said—very quietly indeed, "Open the door, my darling!" "I can't," said I. "The key is down by the fr...
Conversely, the red plant itself burns a brighter red when set off by the green than when it grows among its peers. In the bed I always reserved for poinsettia seedlings, there was little to distinguish one plant from its neighbours. My poinsettia di...
You could always industrialize,” she refilled Jimmy’s wine glass. “You know, get a job stunning chickens in a factory to earn the trust of the working class.” Jimmy laughed again and accidentally spat Chablis on my legs. “It’s a pretty si...
I think it will last," said Grandfather. "In my experience when people once begin to read they go on. They begin because they think they ought to and they go on because they must. Yes. They find it widens life. We're all greed for life, you know, and...
Yeah, well, you clearly also couldn't be bothered to call me and tell me you were shacking up with some dyed-blond wanna-be goth you probably met at Pandemonium. After I spent the past three days wondering if you were dead." "I was not shacking up," ...
When he had ended, the holy hermit was a moment silent, then said: "My son, I have attended to thy story and I know the maiden. I have myself seen her, as have many. Know, then, that she is capricious for she imposeth conditions that man cannot fulfi...
And you would know so much about women, locked up in your castle." "Locked up with eight wives. And sometimes I make house calls for my bargainers. There's many a lovely woman desperate enough to bargain with me." This idea had never occurred to me b...
Oh, Al, shut up! Stop criticizing me! First I'm criticized for being a prude and sounding like a social worker or something, then I'm criticized for looking like a cheap broad. How am I supposed to live? Under the water or something, coming up only t...
Jake eyed his brother. "I never forget. All data is stored in my memory banks. And one day, candy pig, you will pay." "You 're such a geek." "Thesbo." "That's Jack's latest insult." Seth gestured with his wine-glass. "A play on thespian, since Kev's ...
One day, back when I working at a video store, a woman accompanied by her two small sons walked up the counter with a tape box displaying a man slicing off someone’s head with a chainsaw. “Does this have any sex in it?” she asked. In my mind, i...
I know the Smiths," I snapped, because lord knows you can launch any kind of criticism at me, lord knows I've heard it all before, but don't you dare doubt my musical knowledge. There's not much I can do right, just this one thing, but you cannot tak...
I had a dream about you. You were a stranger playing a gig in this pub where I was waitressing. I felt like I knew you or needed to, so I asked you to have a few drinks with me. Then my alarm went off. I sat up in bed to see you still sleeping. I’m...
I had a dream about you. You were sitting in a dentist’s chair, and I was cleaning your teeth. You wondered if I was a dentist, and I wondered why more people didn’t brush their teeth with Windex. I did a rush job with you, because I still had si...
In a taxi speeding uptown on the West Side Highway, I let my thoughts drift below the surface of the Hudson until it finally occurs to me that feelings fill the gaps created by the indirectness of experience. Though the experience is social, thoughts...
Please just admit it," said Valkyrie. "You're going to miss me, aren't you?" "Obviously," said Skulduggery. "Thank you." "Like a drowning man misses the land." "A w w w..." "Like a hesitant man misses the chance." "Yeah..." "Like an oblivious man mis...
You ever notice how long it takes for things to happen when you know they're supposed to happen? My fake Walkman has a built-in alarm, and I set it for two in the morning and wear the headphones to bed, but before you can wake up you have to fall asl...
And could you, from a place of love, actually stand up and, use force, to give someone back, the suffering, they were trying to put on you? Would I do it? Maybe it would even be, an act of fierce compassion, as Enso Roshi sometimes talked about, to n...
I stare at the stars... And even though there are so many and they look so close together, I know they are light years apart. The glitter in the sky looks as if I could scoop it all up in my hands and let the stars swirl and touch one another, but th...
Try it again," I said. "Kiss me." "No," he said. "Kiss me." "No," And then he smiled. "You kiss me." I placed my hand on the back of his neck. I pulled him toward me. And kissed him. I kissed him. And I kissed him. And I kissed him. And I kissed him....
