I have often reflected upon the new vistas that reading opened to me. I knew right there, in prison, that reading had changed forever the course of my life. As I see it today, the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mental...
For while they'd stayed close during the absurd years of his sharp rise, having children had knocked it all into a different arrangement. The minute you had children you closed ranks. You didn't plan this in advance, but it happened. Families were li...
I notice he doesn't have his meteorite bag and see out the window it's probably going to pour any minute, but wee need to et out of here. Immediately. "We're going to search for meteorites," I say, like that's what most people do on winter mornings. ...
Do you ever wear leather?" the guy asks. "What?" "Leather. Do you like leather?" "It doesn't exactly wipe me out." "I like to see boys in leather." I look at him cool. "Okay," I say, "what is it you want and how much are you willing to pay for it?" "...
What is it about the relationship of a mother that can heal or hurt us? Her womb is the first landscape we inhabit. It is here we learn to respond - to move, to listen, to be nourished and grow. In her body we grow to be human as our tails disappear ...
I remember walking across Sixty-second Street one twilight that first spring, or the second spring, they were all alike for a while. I was late to meet someone but I stopped at Lexington Avenue and bought a peach and stood on the corner eating it and...
At first we had so much to catch up on we were talking a hundred words a second, barely even listening to the ends of one another's sentences before moving onto the next. And there was laughing. Lots of laughing. Then the laughing stopped and there w...
I read of a Buddhist teacher who developed Alzheimer's. He had retired from teaching because his memory was unreliable, but he made one exception for a reunion of his former students. When he walked onto the stage, he forgot everything, even where he...
Among them was a middle-aged man supported by two broken sticks. His legs were bent permanently beneath him by accident or disease, and it took him five minutes to cross the room, collect his ballot and shuffle into the booth in front of me. It was p...
A curse. Been in our family for generations. The Lees have always been perverts. I shall never forget the unspeakable horror that froze the lymph in my glands--the lymph glands that is, of course--when the baneful word seared my reeling brain: . I th...
Emerson lifts his head. His eyes are two dark pools of desire, a clouded night’s sky. He catches his breath a moment, unsteady, and then drops a kiss on my lips. Sweet. Almost tender. I barely have time to take it in before he grabs my shoulder and...
Our favorite film is . Amy Eleni and I must watch it seventeen or eighteen times a year, and with each viewing our raptness grows looser and looser; we don't need the visuals anymore--one or the other of us can go into the kitchen halfway through and...
Tony Wendice: One thousand pounds in cash. C.A. Swan: For a murder? Tony Wendice: For a few minutes work, that's all it is. And no risk, I guarantee. That ought to appeal to you. You've been skating on pretty thin ice. C.A. Swan: I don't know what yo...
Bridget von Hammersmark: There have been two recent developments regarding Operation Kino. One, the venue has been changed from the Ritz to a much smaller venue. Lt. Aldo Raine: Enormous changes at the last minute? That's not very Germatic. Why the h...
Joly: Marius, wake up! What's wrong today? You look as if you've seen a ghost. Grantaire: Some wine and say what's going on! Marius: A ghost, you say? A ghost, maybe. She was just like a ghost to me. One minute there, then she was gone. Grantaire: I ...
Rev. Harry Powell: [when he notices John staring at the words "love" and "hate" tattooed across his knuckles] Ah, little lad, you're staring at my fingers. Would you like me to tell you the little story of right-hand/left-hand? The story of good and ...
Tagalong: Gee, you're beautiful. Sis: Are you going to marry Robin Hood? Tagalong: Mama says that you and Robin Hood are sweethearts. Marian: Well you see, that was several years ago before I left for London. Toby: Did he ever kiss you? Marian: Well ...
Brandon Shaw: Determined to get drunk, aren't you? Phillip Morgan: I am drunk. Brandon Shaw: And just as childish as you were before when you called me a liar. Phillip Morgan: You had no business telling that story. Brandon Shaw: Why did you lie anyw...
Ramon: We have visitors. Tremendous visitors! Two simply enormous Roman lords on the hill. Batiatus: How easily impressed you are, Ramon. Just 'cause they're Romans, I suppose they're enormous. Tell them to wait for me when they arrive. Ramon: Master...
Holly Sargis: One day, while taking a look at some vistas in Dad's stereopticon, it hit me that I was just this little girl, born in Texas, whose father was a sign painter, who only had just so many years to live. It sent a chill down my spine and I ...
During the act of making something, I experience a kind of blissful absence of the self and a loss of time. When I am done, I return to both feeling as restored as if I had been on a trip. I almost never get this feeling any other way. I once spent s...
