The most dangerous thing about an academic education is that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost in abstract thinking instead of simply paying attention to what’s going on in front of me.
Intimacy doesn’t take a lot of time, but you do have to make the time. You can’t work long hours, days at a time, only keeping the prize at the end. A healthy relationship needs constant attention, daily, even if just a few moments to connect. Li...
One night they walked while the moon rose and poured a great burden of glory over the garden until it seemed fairyland with Amory and Eleanor, dim phantasmal shapes, expressing eternal beauty and curious elfin love moods. Then they turned out of the ...
Youth is like having a big plate of candy. Sentimentalists think they want to be in the pure, simple state they were in before they ate the candy. They don't. They just want the fun of eating it all over again. The matron doesn't want to repeat her g...
There is a time for everything. There is a time for a leader to allow those over whom he has authority to demonstrate what they are about and their capabilities. There also is a time for a leader to utilize knowledge garnered while silent to bring ab...
His remorse was purely physical. Only his body, strained nerves, and cowering flesh were afraid of the drowned man. Conscience played no part in his terrors, and he had not the slightest regret about killing Camille; in his moments of calm, when the ...
Once inside I stripped off my clothes and showered. Refreshed, I pick up my phone and type. ME: I want you. Come over now if you feel the same way. I held my breath as a I waited for a response but after several minutes none came. Maybe he wasn't goi...
We danced together. We didn’t look graceful, but how could we? She only had one leg and I had my eyes on her friend the whole night. Sure, her friend couldn’t dance either, and literally had two left feet, but I’ll take two left feet over one l...
The wisest thing my grandpa ever said to me before he died was "Stop!" Thinking back, I don't know if he was talking to me or the car that ran him over. I prefer to think he was talking to the car, because how could he be so foolish to try to talk to...
Being exhausted, yet keeping up the pursuit.' (Judges 8:4) Even after what I had said of wanting out, even after that humiliation, the physical exhaustion, the deep despair I felt, those words were my new marching orders. The next morning, I swung my...
My headboard has bars, like a jail cell. Sometimes I’ll be asleep and think I’m in prison, and I’ll hear my alarm clock go off and feel like I’m out on parole. Only then does it hit me: life in the slumbering gulag wasn’t so bad after all, ...
Because she left him a MySpace message that was semi-flirty, and then today he was very vague about what he was doing. So I headed over to his house and waited outside until he left. And now he’s at McDonald’s, and I’m following him to see wher...
I think you're crazy good at this survival stuff, Cary." His shoulders sag. He gives me a small, relieved smile and we start walking again, his step a little lighter than it was before. It feels strange to have that kind of power over someone. "I mea...
Mercy!" cried Gandalf. "If the giving of knowledge is to be the cure of your inquisitiveness, I shall spend all the rest of my days in answering you. What more should you like to know?" "The names of all the stars, and of all living things, and the w...
Winslow bounced over on the balls of his feet, clearly not experiencing any sort of crash. 'Aren't your guys nervous? I'm nervous as all hell.' 'There's nothing to be nervous about,' Beck said, joining them. 'Nerves are only useful when they can spur...
I won’t touch you,” I assured him, knowing I could throw a burst of energy that would undoubtedly drop the curtain on the moment. “I have it under control.” He traced the line of my clavicle with this finger and kissed the corners of my mouth...
Reading is not as insignificant as we claim. First we must steal the key to the library. Reading is a provocation, a rebellion: we open the book’s door, pretending it is a simple paperback cover, and in broad daylight escape! We are no longer there...
Miriam - I'll give you any flowers you want!' Rhapsodising over the thousand scents of her body, I exclaimed: 'I'll grow orchids from your hands, roses from your breasts. You can have magnolias in your hair...!' 'And in my heart?' 'In your womb I'll ...
Noah shifted on the bed, and the oddest crunching sound came underneath him. I looked, really looked, at the bed for the first time. "What," I asked slowly, as I eyed the animal crackers strewn all over it, "the hell?" "You were convinced they were y...
Ignore him," Heather begged. "I do. Constantly." Jean-Luc studied the coach, then turned to Heather with a wary look. "Every man in this town wants you." She laughed. "Yea, right. The old guys from the nursing home go into cardiac arrest whenever I w...
Damn, Ian was already there. I braced myself as he came out from behind the RV. He sniffed, his nose wrinkling. Then he looked over me and my blonde captive, grinning. "Managed to squeeze in a golden shower along the way? How lecherous, I'm impressed...
