I have furnished myself with a Bible and Testament; and I can say also that I have found them to be much worse books than I had conceived. If I have erred in any thing, in the former part of the Age of Reason, it has been by speaking better of some p...
It is not then the existence or the non-existence, of the persons that I trouble myself about; it is the fable of Jesus Christ, as told in the New Testament, and the wild and visionary doctrine raised thereon, against which I contend. The story, taki...
When even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, dispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circu...
Whenever I hear of someone else's tragedy, I do not dwell on the accident or diagnosis, or even the initial shock waves or aftermath of grief. Instead, I find myself reconstructing those final ordinary moments. Moments that make up our lives. Moments...
Then at certain moments I remember one of his words and I suddenly feel the sensual woman flaring up, as if violently caressed. I say the word to myself, with joy. It is at such a moment that my true body lives.
Every single minute of the day I want to kiss you. The fact that I’ve been able to mostly hold myself back is a miracle. You have no idea how hard I’ve had to work to resist you. And yeah, I’ve been making up excuses, but it’s not because I�...
I liked AC/DC," Lee said. "If you were going to shoot someone, you'd really want to do it while you were listening to them." "What about the Beatles? Did you feel like shooting anyone listening to them?" Lee considered seriously for a moment, then sa...
I tried to shut myself down completely, put up my best screensaver personality to coast through the day. I didn't want to see her. I was desperate to see her. I wanted to hold it together. I wanted to melt down right at her feet and scream, Look what...
What happened?" he asked brusquely, interrupting me. "What do you mean, what happened?" "I sensed your fear, heard you call out my name." "I...no, I didn't." I told myself. Great Wall of China, around my thoughts. "The Great Wall of China isn't...
But like a boat with a twisted rudder, I kept coming back to the same place. I wasn't going anywhere. I was myself, waiting on the shore for me to return. Was that so depressing? Who knows? Maybe that was 'despair.' What Turgenev called 'disillusionm...
If I had felt then as I feel now, or as I felt a few years after I had married her, nothing could possibly have persuaded me to marry a woman who smoked. Dates, yes. Sexual adventures, yes. But to pin myself permanently inside closed quarters with a ...
In the beginning, being alone is always a choice. Then it's not a choice anymore. When did it stop being a choice? What is it in me that stopped choosing you, that moved into you instead so that I have to be with you in order to be with myself?
I'm here by choice, I reminded myself. I'm here because I can't bear to be not- here anymore. I'm here because I can't tell right from wrong, light from dark. I'm here because I can't stand being me. I'm here because I don't want anyone to know where...
Since the age of five I had been one of those people who was an indefatigable reader, more inclined to go off by myself with a book than do any of the dozens of things that children usually do to amuse themselves. I never aged out of it.
I eventually came to understand that in harboring the anger, the bitterness and resentment towards those that had hurt me, I was giving the reins of control over to them. Forgiving was not about accepting their words and deeds. Forgiving was about le...
So, I’m a playwright. In Minneapolis. Which means that I find myself operating in a pretty lefty crowd, most of the time. And most of my energy goes towards arguing with that, and musing about how I really fucking can’t stand Democrats. So I was ...
All that mattered was that he was Adrian, my Adrian. My match. My partner in crime, in the long battle I’d just signed on for to right the wrongs in the Alchemist and Moroi worlds. Maybe Marcus was right that I’d also signed myself up for disaste...
Patronage of Negation I am constantly confronted by other people’s works That I could have created myself. And I am constantly disappointed by them. Sadly, I have to recognize them For what they are: inferior versions Of what I could have done If I...
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and filled myself up with the breeze from the valley. Then I let it out slow so it could get back to its travels, with a little bit of me added to it.
I had a dream about you. You were being hung. I had a sword in one hand and a stool in the other. I couldn’t decide which one to use, so I stood on the stool and threw myself on the sword. It was the least I could do to protest capital punishment.
And so I found myself in a kind of love lock: pining for the wrong person, grieving beside a woman whose body I can't touch, being given a second chance I can't find the clarity to take.
