I wanted to write something that made no linear sense. None. Zero. Something that was 87% pure nonsense, 12% pure alcohol, and 3% orange juice, for a chaser. That formula is accurate, give or take 2% for the milk. In my experience, comedy is 2/3rds t...
She came downstairs like a doe stepping into a clearing on the first day of hunting season. I felt like a coward. I was lower than dirt. I had used every trick in my book to get her to come downstairs. I had manipulated her emotions, cheated and worm...
Today on the platform, surrounded by so many people, I asked myself whether I would miss any one of them if they weren't here, and then: Whether they would miss me if I weren't here. Whether we are not all somehow here in order to touch one another. ...
...Bin Laden's quotes from the Quaran resonated in my brain: "When you meet the unbelievers, strike them in the neck." "If you do not go out and fight, God will punish you severely and put others in your place." "Wherever you find the polytheists, ki...
He bent over Farid and wiped some soot from his cold forehead. "Roxanne knows it," he said. "She'll tell it to you. Just go to her and... and tell her I've had to go away. Tell her I'm going to find out if the story is true." He spoke with a strange ...
Our house was littered with books- in the kitchen, under the beds, stuck between the couch pillows--far too many for her the ever finish. I suppose I thought if my grandmother kept up her interests, she wouldn't die; she'd have to stay around to fini...
I recognized it instantly. It was a made-up story, a fantasy, the tale of four kids who went through a magic wardrobe and found themselves in a strange new world. I'd read it more times than I could remember, and although I sneered at the thought of ...
Everybody dies. There’s nothing you can do about it. Whether or not you eat six almonds a day. Whether or not you believe in God. (Although there’s no question a belief in God would come in handy. It would be great to think there’s a plan, and ...
I was at a loss suddenly; but conscious all the while of how Armand listened; that he listened in the way that we dream of others listening, his face seeming to reflect on every thing said. He did not start forward to seize on my slightest pause, to ...
When Alex left for Alaska," Franz remembers, "I prayed. I asked God to keep his finger on the shoulder of that one; I told him that boy was special. But he let Alex die. So on December 26, when I learned what happened, I renounced the Lord. I withdre...
When we saw a destitute-looking man trying to sell worn flip-flops, I vowed never to complain about a job again. When I considered the steady paycheck and quality of life it provided, my past gripes - primarily boring meetings, back-biting office pol...
Hello, Bradley,' said Mom. She'd regained her composure after my outburst, and now raised her camera. 'Stand close.' 'No, Mom,' I said. 'No pictures.' 'But you're friend's here now,' she said, waving us together. 'Smile!' 'I don't need a picture with...
Am I picking you up tonight?” he asked. “Or do you still think I'm an ax murderer who might break into your house and off you and your family?” “Pretty sure you'd go all parkour on us. Instead of using an ax.” “Parkour? You think I'd use ...
The boys were amazed that I could make such a poem as that out of my own head, and so was I, of course, it being as much a surprise to me as it could be to anybody, for I did not know that it was in me. If any had asked me a single day before if it w...
Sure, some people are afraid of steroids. Some people were afraid of fire, too. Afraid of electricity, or of splitting the atom. But I know that the body I have now is far superior to the one I was born with. I, Jose Canseco, have changed my own dest...
And for all those years, we never talked about the disaster at the recital or my terrible accusations afterward at the piano bench. All that remained unchecked, like a betrayal that was now unbreakable. So I never found a way to ask her why she had h...
He laughs a little, but there's something in his voice that sounds almost reverent. 'You never know what will last.' He said that earlier, about accidents, about never knowing which one is just a kink in the road and which ones is a fork, about never...
-But where are you going to, Helen? Can you see? Do you know? -I believe; I have faith: I am going to God. -Where is God? What is God? -My maker and yours, who will never destroy what He created. I rely implicitly on His power, and confide wholly in ...
They all call me "Excuse me," even though my nametag clearly says "Jordan." It's like people don't actually exist while they're working. Workers are just tools who aren't supposed to have feelings or personalities. You don't become human until your s...
They were not bound to regard with affection a thing that could not sympathise with one amongst them; a heterogeneous thing, opposed to them in temperament, in capacity, in propensities; a useless thing, incapable of serving their interest, or adding...
Yet, when this cherished volume was now placed in my hand—when I turned over its leaves, and sought in its marvellous pictures the charm I had, till now, never failed to find—all was eerie and dreary; the giants were gaunt goblins, the pigmies ma...
