Procuring the house in Ballister was a desperate bid for respect, for recognition, the ultimate gesture (or sacrifice, as it turned out) that would prove him a worthy successor to the Flo and Walter Prices of the world. To my mind, the Culver was Nor...
I don’t want your babies, Felix. I can assure you I’m not sitting up here like some tragic fallen woman every night dreaming of having your babies.” She began tracing a figure of eight with her fingernail along his stomach. The movement looked ...
If this constant sliding and hiding of meaning were true of conscious life, then we would of course never be able to speak coherently at all. If the whole of language were present to me when I spoke, then I would not be able to articulate anything at...
Relegated as he was to a corner and as though sheltered behind the billiard table, the soldiers, their eyes fixed upon Enjolras, had not even noticed Grantaire, and the sergeant was preparing to repeat the order: 'Take aim!' when suddenly they heard ...
Does the work get easier once you know what you are doing?" "Your lungs grow thick with stone dust and your eyes bleary from the sun and fragments thrown up by the chisel. You pour your lifeblood out into works of stone for Romans who will take your ...
The ship's surgeon was a spotty unshaven little man whose clothes, arrayed with smudges, drippings, and cigarette burns, were held about him by an extensive network of knotted string, The buttons down the front of those duck trousers had originally b...
I spent the last Friday of summer vacation spreading hot, sticky tar across the roof of George Washington High. My companions were Dopey, Toothless, and Joe, the brain surgeons in charge of building maintenance. At least they were getting paid. I was...
Dale, a Plutonian Dreg Bug, the kind with seventeen eyes and a bad temper, got nailed in one of his eyes by a wild dart. Fight broke out when he punched Earl in the nose. Earl’s nose is very sensitive, hell it’s how he sees, sort of. Earl plopped...
Home is where I take up such a tiny portion of the memory foam; home is a splintered word. His pillow is a sweat-stained map of an escape plot, also a map of love’s dear abandon. (When did he give way, at which breath?) Forgiveness may mean retrosp...
Linda: This is not your house, Doyle. This is my house and I decide who goes and who stays. You got a house, why don't you get some of your girlfriends and go home to it? Doyle: You know better than to talk to me like that when I'm hurtin', Linda. Do...
Jöns: It's hell with women and hell without women. No matter how you reason it seems like the logic thing to do is to kill them while it's still fun. Blacksmith Plog: Bickering and swill! Jöns: Screaming babies and diapers full of piss! Blacksmith ...
Mattie Ross: You never told me you had a wife. Rooster Cogburn: Oh, well, I didn't have her long. My friends was a pack of river rats and she didn't crave their society so she up and left me and went back to her first husband who was clerkin' in a ha...
Jesse James: You know I'm real comfortable with your brother. Hell, he's ugly as sin and he smells like a skunk and he's so ignorant he couldn't drive nails in the snow, but he's sort of easy to be around. I can't say the same for you, Bob. Robert Fo...
You hardly know me and yet you invited me out on a date,’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘Why?’ Because you called me a phoney, Moist thought. You saw through me straight away. Because you didn’t nail my head to the door with your crossbow. Because you...
Little Cinder Girl, they can't understand you. You rise from the as-heap in a blaze and only then do they recognize you as their one true love. While you pray beneath your mother's tree you carrve a phoenix into your palm wth aa hazel twig and coal; ...
Hey!” The male voice sliced through the noise. Terri ignored him, determined to get back to the bar for her next order. A harsh hand gripped her arm, jerking her back into a firm chest. “I asked your name.” Hot breath reeking of stale beer perm...
Now he haunts me seldom: some fierce umbilical is broken, I live with my own fragile hopes and sudden rising despair. Now I do not weep for my sins; I have learned to love them And to know that they are the wounds that make love real. His face illude...
My friend Wicker once said to be careful what and how you say what you’re really thinking to a woman. After much screwing up in that department with Emma, I’ve learned it’s not what you should hide, but what you say that makes her react the way...
Ardelia Mapp: Is this Lecter's handwriting? "Clarice, doesn't this random scattering of sites seem desperately random - like the elaborations of a bad liar? Ta, Hannibal Lecter." Clarice Starling: "Desperately random." What does he mean? Ardelia Mapp...
Raoul Duke: Well, they've nailed me goddamnit. I'm trapped in some stinking desert crossroads called Baker. I don't have much time man, the fuckers are closing in! They'll hunt me down like a fucking beast! Dr. Gonzo: Whoa, getting a little paranoid?...
Gorgeous George: Get back down or you will not be coming up next time. [watches as Mickey warms up] Gorgeous George: Oh, bollocks to you. This is sick. I'm out of here. Mickey: You're not going anywhere, you thick lump. [Pulls off his shirt] Mickey: ...