It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which wealth, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while power remained in the hands of a small privileged caste. But in practice such a society could not ...
I had all the characteristics of a human being-- flesh, blood, skin, hair-- but my depersonalization was so intense, had gone so deep, that the normal ability to feel compassion had been eradicated, the victim of a slow, purposeful erasure. I was sim...
I had a dream about you. You were canned laughter, and I was a can of tomato paste. I was organic, but you were completely artificial. You thought people liked having you around, but I knew better. We all laughed at your fake laughter behind your bac...
Its so hard to talk when you want to kill yourself. That's above and beyond everything else, and it's not a mental complaint-it's a physical thing, like it's physically hard to open your mouth and make the words come out. They don't come out smooth a...
As you wish, of course." Lucius lowered the volume on an old record player, which spun a warped vinyl disk that wailed unfamiliar music, scratchy and whiny, like cats fighting. Or a coffin with rusty hinges opening and closing over and over again in ...
Grandfather looked away from me and out to sea, and when he spoke, it was as though he spoke to himself. “The obligations of normal human kindness – chesed, as the Hebrew has it – that we all owe. But there’s a kind of vanity in thinking you ...
Michael looked embarrassed. “No, I don’t really… I mean in real life, I don’t do that. I read BDSM once in a while, but honestly, I prefer the sweeter romances.” “Sure. I believe you. Bondage Ben.” “Stop it.” Michael laughed. “Cra...
She wondered whether all marriages started out this way. Whether this initial stress and adjustment, push and pull and tremors and shakes were common to all relationships. Maybe the fact that they had started off as a long-distance couple had shielde...
Though I have said that I envy the normal man to the last drop of my bile, yet I should not care to be in his place such as he is now (though I shall not cease envying him). No, no; anyway the underground life is more advantageous. There, at any rate...
Some people get a kick out of reading railway timetables and that's all they do all day. Some people make huge model boats out of matchsticks. So what's wrong if there happens to be one guy in the world who enjoys trying to understand you?" "Kind of ...
He rolled the boat over to get out from under it, and forced himself to take the steps up to the bridge at a normal pace. He was delighted to see the Doctor, but he wouldn't want the Doctor to think he was incapable of getting on on his own. "Oh, it'...
What would normal people think if they knew what went on in a writer's mind below the surface? They'd think him even more around the bend than they had previously supposed if they could see the witches' cauldron of images and memories boiling up from...
Pulling the chair out for me, he invited me to sit. I stood there wondering if I could sprint for the nearest exit. Stupid strappy shoes, I'd never make it. He leaned in close and whispered in my ear, "I know what you're thinking, and I'm not going t...
Clever deceivers rarely tell outright falsehoods. It’s too risky. The art of deception is closely related to the magician’s craft: it involves knowing how to draw attention to a harmless place, to deflect it away from the action. Deeply entrenche...
El libro es jardín que se puede llevar en el bolsillo, nave espacial que viaja en la mochila, arma para enfrentar las mejores batallas y afrentar a los peores enemigos, semilla de libertad, pañuelo para las lágrimas. El libro es cama mullida y cam...
After Carol had left, as Symons threw away a pile of used tissues and rearranged the cushions on the couch, he remarked that the most common and unhelpful illusion plaguing those who came to see him [as a career counselor] was the idea that they ough...
So what if I don't learn algebra?' 'Someday schools will be open again,' Mom said. 'Things will be normal. You need to do your work now for when that happens.' 'That's never going to happen,' Jon said. 'And even if schools do open up somewhere, they'...
When he heard laughter, before he could think or feel anything, his heart would already be beating like he’d sprinted twenty yards. As the beating slowly normalized he’d think of how his heart, unlike him, was safely contained, away from the worl...
He takes the beer and sets it on the floor. "I've never been into guys. So, this attraction to you is a little weird for me." I try to ease his mind by telling him that a lot of straight guys have at least one homosexual experience in their lifetime ...
I compare myself with my former self, not with others. Not only that, I tend to compare my current self with the best I have been, which is when I have been midly manic. When I am my present "normal" self, I am far removed from when I have been my li...
He was like one of those pictures full of small errors, the kind you could only pick out by searching the image from every angle, and even then, a few always slipped by. On the surface, Eli seemed perfectly normal, but now and then Victor would catch...
