I sit alone in a dead world. The wind blows hot and dry, and the dust gathers like particles of memory waiting to be swept away. I pray for forgetfulness, yet my memory remains strong, as does the outstretched arm of the oppressive air. It seems as i...
Scott Smith: [reading a threatening note] 'Harvey Milk will have a dream journey and nightmare to hell. A night of horror. He will be stabbed and have your genitals, cock balls and prick cut off.' I'm calling the police. Harvey Milk: They probably wr...
Bill: At my cousin Ruthie's wedding, the groom's brother was that guy Alakazam. You know who I'm talking about? Stan: The magician with the ponytail? Bill: Right. Well, he did his act, and every time he made something disappear, Vinny jumped on him. ...
Frank Serpico: You know that I'm totally isolated in the department. I don't have a friend. Chief Sidney Green: Oh, don't give me that bullshit about friends. I've been putting cops away for thirty years. My name's an obscenity to every shithouse wal...
[first lines] Sarah Connor: [narrating] Three billion human lives ended on August 29th, 1997. The survivors of the nuclear fire called the war Judgment Day. They lived only to face a new nightmare: the war against the machines. The computer which con...
Our faces are so close to one another right now, and all I can do is selfishly think how easy it would be for me to lean forward and kiss him like I’ve dreamed about for the last couple of weeks. One kiss, and then I’d let him go. One kiss, to re...
It begins when he’s still a man in a suit, doing the kinds of boring things that men in suits do. The things that no one writes about because they know that boys don’t really have nightmares about clowns or three-eyed tentacled beasts that rise f...
I am both numb and oversensitive, overwhelmed by the need, the raw and desperate need of the girls I am listening to and trying to help. I'm overdosing on the trauma of others, while still barely healing from my own. I cry for hour at home and have f...
But one look at Wildcard's face, and he knew there was trouble. Problem? he signaled. Wildcard responded with an obscene gesture that more than conveyed his opinion that not only was this a problem, but it was a big problem. ... "Okay". That was not ...
I thought, Dad. Could I go to Vietnam for you? Dad, I could do it. I could do it for you. I could go to the places you fought. I could find the bits and pieces of your heart and soul left behind. If I bring them back, would it heal your pain? Dad, yo...
If I die this instant will you be more content with the morning news? Will your coffee taste better? I am not your fate. I am not your government…I am not your mother, not your father or your nightmare or your health. I am not a fence, not a wall. ...
I leave her to chemically combust and find Wren in the student council office, filling out extremely interesting paperwork. He’s buried behind piles of the stuff. I can barely see tufts of his blonde hair poking out. I reach into the paperwork pile...
What was the difference between Anne Frank and any other 15 year old girl living the same nightmare? Nothing! Aside from the fact that Anne spoke through her writings while others kept silent. Someone very special to me recently asked how can I write...
Peter Brand: The Visalia Oaks and our 240 lb catcher Jeremy Brown, who as you know, scared to run to second base. This was in a game six weeks ago. This guy is going to start him off with a fastball. Jeremy's going to take him to deep center. Here's ...
The Narrator: Who was this Leonard Zelig that seemed to create such diverse impressions everywhere? All that was known of him was that he was the son of a Yiddish actor named Morris Zelig, whose performance as Puck in the Orthodox version of "A Midsu...
With battle-weary arms, Sheridan slugged his way across the luminous waves sending light-filled droplets splashing into the air like Fourth of July sparklers. Stumbling onto the lake’s rocky banks, he clawed desperately at the animal skin suit, yan...
So, what's the story?" "No story. Just a nightmare.” “Meaning?” “Meaning, heavy compression lines in his cartilage, severe bruising on his kidneys, liver and lower intestines. Fracture marks on his collar bone, tibia, radius, humerus, scapula...
The stuff of nightmare is their plain bread. They butter it with pain. They set their clocks by deathwatch beetles, and thrive the centuries. They were the men with the leather-ribbon whips who sweated up the Pyramids seasoning it with other people's...
Woolrich had a genius for creating types of story perfectly consonant with his world: the noir cop story, the clock race story, the waking nightmare, the oscillation thriller, the headlong through the night story, the annihilation story, the last hou...
I return one last time to the places of death all around us, the places of slaughter to which, in a huge communal effort, we close our hearts. Each day a fresh holocaust, yet, as far as I can see, our moral being is untouched. We do not feel tainted....
The thing about real life is, when you do something stupid, it normally costs you. In books the heroes can make as many mistakes as they like. It doesn't matter what they do, because everything works out in the end. They'll beat the bad guys and put ...
