It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day- A sunny day with the leaves just turning, The touch-lines new-ruled - since I watched you play Your first game of fotball, then, like a satellite Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away Behind a scatter ...
There are a lot of ways for a novelist to create suspense, but also really only two: one a trick, one an art. The trick is to keep a secret. Or many secrets, even. In Lee Child’s books, Jack Reacher always has a big mystery to crack, but there are ...
Why, aren’t you just about as sweet as syrup on a sundae? I sure would appreciate that, ma’am.” He winked. “How’d you like ta stroll the deck of this fine ship with me and watch the sunset? I need a purty girl to put her arm around me and s...
A baby is God's opinion that life should go on. A book that does nothing to you is dead. A baby, whether it does anything to you, represents life. If a bad fire should break out in this house and I had my choice of saving the library or the babies, I...
As Raimbaut dragged a dead man along he thought, ‘Oh corpse, I have come rushing here only to be dragged along by the heels like you. What is this frenzy that drives me, this mania for battle and for love, when seen from the place where your starin...
She was suddenly roused by the sound of the door-bell, and her spirits were a little fluttered by the idea of its being Colonel Fitzwilliam himself, who had once before called late in the evening, and might now come to inquire particularly after her....
Captain Harvile: Poor Phoebe, she would not have forgotten him so soon. It was not in her nature. Anne Elliot: It would not be in the nature of any woman who truly loved. Captain Harvile: Do you claim that for your sex? Anne Elliot: We do not forget ...
I was suddenly made aware of another world of beauty and mystery such as I had never imagined to exist, except in poetry. It was as though I had begun to see and smell and hear for the first time. The world appeared to me as Wordsworth describes with...
And that brings me to one last point. I've got a simple message for all the dedicated and patriotic federal workers who have either worked without pay, or who have been forced off the job without pay for these last few weeks. Including most of my own...
Where my soul went during that swoon I cannot tell. Whatever she saw, or wherever she travelled in her trance on that strange night she kept her own secret; never whispering a word to Memory, and baffling imagination by an indissoluble silence. She m...
What's the first sign of a lurking, hidden expectation you didn't know you had? Pain! People don't do what we want, things don't happen quickly enough, the weather doesn't cooperate, our bodies don't cooperate. Why are these moments so painful? Becau...
He said you have to be on the side of the losers, the people with bad lungs. You have to be with those who are homesick and can't breathe very well in Ireland. He said it makes no sense to hold a stone in your hand. A lot more people would be homeles...
Well that ain’t so. You get babies from each other. But there’s this man, too—he has all these babies just waitin‘ to wake up, he breathes life into ’em…” Dill was off again. Beautiful things floated around in his dreamy head. He could ...
Hello," Life says, "Remember me? We started out together here When you were just a bundle Of innocent amazement. Remember how you saw the world With nothing but wonder? We were such rowdy playmates then. We painted on the sky with clouds And made mag...
He gives her his Art History lecture. ‘Then you get Mo-net and Ma-net, that’s a little tricky, Mo-net was the one did all the water lilies and shit, his colors were blues and greens, Ma-net was the one did Bareass on the Grass and shit, his color...
Trust: Some people go through life not trusting no one. It's sad. I've worked with people for many years,done everything right. Even more than I had to just because that's the kind of person I am. Sometimes I would go way above and beyond. Because I ...
So what do you think?’ He asked, holding up the book. ‘I think Salinger is a closet paedophile,’ I replied placidly and was surprised and comforted by this minuscule, acidic, bitter Sylvia Plath like mocking, sniping tone that had crept into my...
Final Disposition Others divided closets full of mother's things. From the earth, I took her poppies. I wanted those fandango folds of red and black chiffon she doted on, loving the wild and Moorish music of them, coating her tongue with the thin ski...
J. Russell Finch: You want me to tell you something? As far as I'm concerned the whole British race is practically finished. If it hadn't been for lend-lease. If we hadn't have kept your whole country afloat by giving you billions that you never even...
Louis: [exhales smoke, heavy coughing] Melanie: You ok? Louis: Just... gettin' old. [continues coughing] Louis: Seems I can't smoke all that now without coughing. Melanie: Coughing's good! It opens up the capillaries. You know, when you cough you're ...
Rollo: Well, well... If it isn't MacGuff the crime dog! Back for another test? Juno MacGuff: I think the last one was defective. The plus sign looked more like a division sign so I remain unconvinced. [Rollo pulls the bathroom key out of reach] Rollo...
