I didn't plan on either children or writing. Once I realized that writing satisfied me in some enormous way, I had to make adjustments. The writing was always marginal in terms of time when the children were small. But it was major in terms of my hea...
I realized today that a daughter is born twice. For nine months, a mother carries and nourishes her daughter in her stomach, then gives birth to her. It's a happy occasion, but the mother is left feeling sadly empty inside...But I realized today that...
No writing is effortless. I’m not saying you can’t have a good day where the words just kind of flow, but even those words have to be edited. Probably more than once. And I’m not saying a character hasn’t somehow gone in a different direction...
Narrator: Was it ticking? Airport Security Officer: Actually throwers don't worry about ticking 'cause modern bombs don't tick. Narrator: Sorry, throwers? Airport Security Officer: Baggage handlers. But, when a suitcase vibrates, then the throwers go...
Mrs. Fox: [Kristofferson has just departed after Ash's comment] You have got twenty-nine minutes to come up with a proper apology. Ash: [snaps, gestures wildly] Me? *Me* have an apology? He gets a bandit hat? He just got here, and he gets a bandit ha...
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: Today... is Christmas! There will be a magic show at zero-nine-thirty! Chaplain Charlie will tell you about how the free world will conquer Communism with the aid of God and a few Marines! God has a hard-on for Marines becau...
Jesse: But your mom was in the wheelchair long before you left. Andrew Largeman: Yeah. Well, I was nine. So they sent me to therapy and put me on these drugs that were supposed to curb my anger and I've been on some form of them ever since. And when ...
Harry Potter: [about the Thestrals] So why can't the others see them? Luna Lovegood: The only people who can see them are those who've seen death. Harry Potter: So, you've known someone who died? Luna Lovegood: My mum. She was quite an extraordinary ...
Nemo Nobody aged 118: Urgh, you're still here? Did I fall asleep? Sometimes I don't sleep so I think... I think about how it was... and all I have left. What do you see when you look at me? A grumpy old man who never answers questions? Who mixes ever...
Juror #8: It's always difficult to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this. And wherever you run into it, prejudice always obscures the truth. I don't really know what the truth is. I don't suppose anybody will ever really know. Nine of us n...
Virgil: Linds, I want you to stay away from that guy. I mean it. Alan "Hippy" Carnes: The guy is gone. Did you see his hands? Lindsey Brigman: What? He got the shakes? Virgil: Look, he's operating on his own. He's cut off from his chain of command. H...
[first lines] Narrator: On September 3rd 1973, at 6:28pm and 32 seconds, a bluebottle fly capable of 14,670 wing beats a minute landed on Rue St Vincent, Montmartre. At the same moment, on a restaurant terrace nearby, the wind magically made two glas...
[Ennis is describing a childhood memory to Jack] Ennis Del Mar: I tell ya there... there were these two old guys ranched up together, down home. Earl and Rich. And they was the joke of town, even though they were pretty tough ol' birds. Anyway they.....
Donna: You killed my... my... Rocco: Your what? Donna: My... Rocco: Your fuckin' what? Huh? Your what, bitch? Rocco: [puts gun to his own head] I'll shoot myself in the head, you can tell me that cat's name! Go ahead! Your what? Your precious, little...
I hope she can’t tell that I’m appraising her and that I’m completely worried by what I see. She’s excitable and strange. She’s ten. What do people do during the day when they’re ten? She runs her fingers along the window and mumbles, “...
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...
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...
