Family myths are cherished by the people who--however unwittingly--have brought them into being. In my own situation, what my father was really saying to me during that last unfortunate phone call was that I had shattered our family's myth: the myth ...
I know you think I didn't know," he says, flipping through the pages and opening it to the middle of the book where there is a collage of all the X-Men, "but sometimes, you forget to shut the blinds." (...) "Zo, I dont think I could ever hate you. Yo...
Danilo's was the kind of place where many drinking men come to hide, be it from their wives, in-laws, their jobs or life in general. it was where men and women can come to drink poison as if it was the only form of medicine available to remedy the mi...
On the warm stone walls, climbing roses were just coming into bloom and great twisted branches of honeysuckle and clematis wrestled each other as they tumbled up and over the top of the wall. Against another wall were white apple blossoms on branches...
Maybe we feel meaning only when we deal with something bigger. Perhaps we hope that someone else, especially someone important to us, will ascribe value to what we've produced? Maybe we need the illusion that our work might one day matter to many peo...
Kiss me," he growled. "I shouldn't—" "I. Don't. Give. A. Damn." Well hell. My lips touched his—barely. I pulled back and looked at him—unfamiliar, dangerous, and so exciting. I devoured his mouth without thinking. Don't think, just touch. I ran...
This is precisely why I being a teacher! Young people are so infernally convinced that they are absolutely right about everything. Has it not occurred to you, my poor puffed-up poppinjay, that there might be an excellent reason why the Headmaster of ...
Ian didn't come. He just sat here with you--he said he didn't care what you looked like. He wouldn't let anyone else put a finger on your tank at all, not even me or Mel. But Doc let me watch this time. It was way cool, Wanda. I don't know why you wo...
You want to tell a story? Grow a heart. Grow two. Now, with the second heart, smash the first one into bits. Gross, right? A bloody pulpy liquid mess. Look at it, try to make sense of it. Realize you can't. Because there is no sense. Ask your compute...
His body had become a companion which seemed always about to leave him: it had its own pains which moved him to pity, and its own particular movements which he tried hard to follow. He had learned from it how to keep his eyes down on the road, so tha...
DENIAL OF EMOTIONS Our culture does not handle emotions well. We like folks to be happy and fine. We learn rituals of acting happy and fine at an early age. I can remember many times telling people "I'm fine" when I felt like the world was caving in ...
Just the minute another person is drawn into some one's life, there begin to arise undreamed-of complexities, and from such a simple beginning as sexual desire we find built up such alarming yet familiar phenomena as fetes, divertissements, telephone...
No circumstance in the world can ever prevent us from believing in God, from placing all our trust in him, from loving him with our whole heart, or from loving our neighbor. Faith, hope, and charity are absolutely free, because if they are rooted in ...
All I'm saying is I think you deserve better,” Case said. “From my point of view, anyway. You deserve better.” I threw my head back on the sofa and laughed. It was a harsh laugh with no mirth. “Most of the time, I don't think I deserve better...
Therefore, the idle parent who wants to stop the whining needs to stop whining himself, and one way is to resist the call to work ever longer and harder hours. Throw your BlackBerry into the river. Unslave yourself. Hard work will not lead to health ...
is the statement of an intellectual who underrates toothaches. is a truth much more universally valid, and it applies to everything that's alive. My self does not differ substantially from yours in terms of its thought. Many people, few ideas: we all...
If every life is a river, then it's little wonder that we do not even notice the changes that occur until we are far out in the darkest sea. One day you look around and nothing is familiar, not even your own face. My name once meant daughter, grandau...
For if we see that the sun, in sending forth its rays upon the earth, to generate, cherish, and invigorate its offspring, in a manner transfuses its substance into it, why should the radiance of the Spirit be less in conveying to us the communion of ...
Darling Daddy, This is Rose. Saffy says everyone says it is Indigo's fault that their Head has two black eyes and a swelled-up nose. Love from Rose. P.S. Sarah who is here says to tell you love from wheelchair woman too. Rose's father telephoned espe...
You can't tell that the coffin holds the body of a boy. He wasn't even sixteen but his coffin's the same size as a man's would be. It's not just that he was young, but because it was so sudden. No one should die the way he did; that's what the faces ...
How strange it was, I thought, that when the tiny though thousandfold beauties of the Earth disappeared and the immeasurable beauty of outer space rose in the distant quiet splendor of light, man and the greatest number of other creatures were suppos...