I mean it,' he said. 'I love your nose.' Love. He'd said it. Though only for her nose ... Her eyes grew larger, wider behind her eyeglasses. She looked afraid, yet full of hope. She was dying to believe him about something she couldn't see in herself...
Stumbling closer, I held up the manuscript, the pages flapping frantically in the wind. “I take it this is a murder mystery? You killed the ex-fiancée and thanked her in the dedication? Mighty dignified of you, I must say.” “Nah. It’s a horr...
Suddenly a force greater than my common sense—which, I’ll admit, has been pretty faulty lately, propels me—and I find myself creeping up the long staircase to the forbidden second floor. I need to see Michael’s room. I need to find out if he ...
"How do I break thee? Let me count the ways. I break thee if thou art at any height My paw can reach, when, smarting from some slight, I sulk, or have one of my crazy days. I break thee with an accidental graze Or twitch of tail, if I should take a f...
In the very act of writing I felt pleased with what I did. There was the pleasure of having words come to me, and the pleasure of ordering them, re-ordering them, weighing one against another. Pleasure also in the imagination of the story, the feelin...
The books we read help to shape who we are. Reading offers us, as children, our first independence- allowing us to travel far beyond the confines of our immediate world. Books introduce us to great figures in history, narratives that stir our spirit,...
Sentencing enhancements won't get police to investigate crimes they don't take seriously to begin with. They won't stop police from harassing trans women on the street because they assume all trans women are sex workers. They won't have any effect ag...
...I'm momentarily transfixed, torn between curiosity and fear. I can pull it up the gently sloping mud bank, but then what? Already thought is lagging behind events, as the blotchy brown mass slides up wet mud toward me, its amorphous margins flowin...
The whole tendency of modern life is towards scientific planning and organisation, central control, standardisation, and specialisation. If this tendency was left to work itself out to its extreme conclusion, one might expect to see the state transfo...
The Strip was still lit by a million neon lights, though the crowds on the sidewalk had greatly decreased by this hour. Still, Bosch was awed by the spectacle of light. In every imaginable color and configuration, it was a megawatt funnel of enticeme...
So that's it. I've told you everything I know. Think clearly and think for yourself. Learn to use language to express those thoughts. Love somebody with all your heart. And with everyone, whether you love them or not, find out if you can be helpful. ...
Yet she lays out this family plan the way you’d say, “After yoga, I’ll go to Lia’s for the mani-special and then wax on about hairstyles and hemlines until dinner.” If I were gifted at making long-term plans, which by now we all know I’m ...
I wish I could break this window. Step through it. But I can't break this window. I can't even find some less dramatic way to die inside of this school, like hanging myself or slitting my wrists, because what would they do with my body? It might put ...
Ever since, New York has existed for me simultaneously as a map to be learned and a place to aspire too--a city of things and a city of signs, the place I actually am and the place I would like to be even when I am here. As a kid, I grasped that the ...
It was a perfect spring day. The air was sweet and gentle and the sky stretched high, an intense blue. Harold was certain that the last time he had peered through the net drapes of Fossebridge Road (his home), the trees and hedges were dark bones and...
When you feel angry or frustrated at a brother for using a particular defense -- being controlling or whatever it is -- you are failing to forgive yourself for the very same attempt; you still believe that the defense has a reality. You are seeing it...
See, the institutions and specialist, experts, you see. Yes, yes, experts, indeed. See, they would have us believe that there is an order to art. An explanation. Humans are odd creatures in that way. Always searching for a formula. Yes, a formula to ...
Or can it be thought that they who heap up an useless mass of wealth, not for any use that it is to bring them, but merely to please themselves with the contemplation of it, enjoy any true pleasure in it? The delight they find is only a false shadow ...
Most people are not prepared to have their minds changed," he said. "And I think they know in their hearts that other people are just the same, and one of the reasons people become angry when they argue is that they realize just that, as they trot ou...
Happiness is part of being whole. It means having an understanding of your identity and purpose, an established feeling of acceptance and value, and a sense of destiny, joy, and peace -- all of which produce overall well-being. It is impossible to be...
...Subordination of the state to Christian values is precisely what the early Puritans, even those in the tradition of the Mayflower Pilgrims, aimed to do. The First Amendment notwithstanding, large numbers of the American public (especially churchgo...
