I have watched them all day and they are the same men that we are. I believe that I could walk up to the mill and knock on the door and I would be welcome except that they have orders to challenge all travelers and ask to see their papers. It is only...
Yet Byron never made tea as you do, who fill the pot so that when you put the lid on the tea spills over. There is a brown pool on the table--it is running among your books and papers. Now you mop it up, clumsily, with your pocket-hankerchief. You th...
I had a dream about you. We watched the water in the toilet swirl down like a liquid tornado, and we wondered if we’d just flushed away our last chance at love. We’d used all the toilet paper, so you had nothing to blow your nose with. So I gave ...
Glen had a disability more disfiguring than a burn and more terrifying than cancer. Glen had been born on the day after Christmas. "My parents just combine my birthday with Christmas, that's all," he explained. But we knew this was a lie. Glen's pare...
From the baking aisle to the post office line to the wrapping paper bin in the attic, women populate every dark corner of Christmas. Who got up at 4 a.m. to put the ham in the oven? A woman. . . . Who sent the Christmas card describing her eighteen-y...
You'll find that historical research is extremely soothing. When you spend all day among old papers, the people come alive for you, and you begin to see the present through different eyes. You'll see. You view young people knowing that this is only o...
In a 1968 study of daily life in classrooms, Philip W. Jackson wrote that students spend as much as 50 percent of their time waiting for something to happen. They wait for teachers to pass out papers. They wait for slower students to get their questi...
As writers we live life twice, like a cow that eats its food once and then regurgitates it to chew and digest it again. We have a second chance at biting into our experience and examining it. ...This is our life and it's not going to last forever. Th...
I had never before been a special fan of that great comedian Phyllis Diller, but she utterly won my heart this week by sending me an envelope that, when opened, contained a torn-off square of brown-bag paper of the kind suitable for latrine duty in a...
The brown and charred rags that hung from the sides of it, I presently recognized as the decaying vestiges of books. They had long since dropped to pieces, and every semblance of print had left them. But here and there were warped boards and cracked ...
Perhaps the current state of my health should have raised a bright red caution flag, but instead it fired me up. I wanted to do what I wanted. I didn't care if hefting plywood and climbing ladders weren't on my doctor's recommended list of activities...
For a moment he came near to sharing their incredible belief—it would do no harm to mutter a prayer of thanks to the God of his childhood, the God of the Common and the castle, that no ill had yet come to Sarah's child. Then a sonic boom scattered ...
Last week my boss told me to rewrite a twenty-page proposal on engagement benchmarking. I turned it in and he wrote a note on the cover that just said, "No, no. Not this." I had no idea what he wanted, so I just put it off, and then when he came in t...
When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego, and when we escape like squirrels turning in the cages of our personality and get into the forests again, we shall shiver with cold and fright but things will happen to us so that we don't know ourselv...
Mr. Parker: So what else happened today? Mother: Oh, nothing much. Ralphie had a fight? Mr. Parker: A fight? What kind of a fight? [Looks at Ralphie] Mother: Oh, you know how boys are. I gave him a talking to... [Looks at the news paper] Mother: Uh I...
Private Cowboy: Tough break for Hand Job. He was all set to get shipped out on a medical. Private Joker: What was the matter with him? Private Cowboy: He was jerkin' off ten times a day. Private Eightball: No shit. At least ten times a day. Private C...
Pete Dunham: Alright, look. We're sort of goin' into my place of business, right? Shut up until you're spoken to and you might have a better run at things. The only thing regarded worse than a Yank around here are coppers and journalists. Matt Buckne...
Lucius: What are we doing here, Bob? Bob: We're protecting people. Lucius: Nobody asked us. Bob: You need an invitation? Lucius: I'd like one, yes. We keep sneaking around, and... You remember Gazer Beam? Bob: Yeah, there was something about him in t...
Mr. Incredible: No, you're that kid from the fan club. Brophy... Brody... Buddy! Buddy... Buddy: My name is IncrediBoy. Mr. Incredible: Look, I've been nice, I've stood for photos, signed every scrap of paper you pushed at me, but this... Buddy: Oh, ...
Verbal: The DA gave me immunity. Dave Kujan: Not from me. You get no immunity from me, you piece of shit. Every criminal I have put in prison, every cop that owes me a favor, every creep and scumbag that walks the streets for a living will know the n...
Eddie Valiant: So, how long have you known it was Doom? Jessica Rabbit: Before poor Marvin was killed, he confided in me that Judge Doom wanted to get his hands on Toontown, and he wouldn't stop at anything. Eddie Valiant: So he gave you the will for...
