Mr. Bernstein: Isn't it wonderful? Such a party. Jedediah Leland: Yeah Mr. Bernstein: What's the matter? Jedediah Leland: Bernstein, these men who are now with the Inquirer, who were with the Chronicle until yesterday... [... ] Jedediah Leland: Berns...
Narrator: Oh, yeah, Chloe... Chloe looked the way Meryl Streep's skeleton would look if you made it smile and walk around the party being extra nice to everybody. Chloe: Well, I'm still here. But I don't know for how long. That's as much certainty as...
[Billy's record makes #1] Radio 1 chart show DJ: Hi, Billy! Billy Mack: Hello. Radio 1 chart show DJ: We're live across the nation, and you're number one! [Billy laughs] Radio 1 chart show DJ: How will you be celebrating? Billy Mack: I don't know. Er...
Caine: My father sold dope and my mother was a heroin addict. Moms and Pops were real popular in the neighborhood. They would always be giving parties for friends of theirs who just got out of jail or was on their way to jail. They only got married '...
The Joker: [when Batman picks up the phone in Andrea's apartment] Hello, anybody home? Listen, boopsie, even though you never call and never write, I still got a soft spot for you. So I'm sending you a fun gift, airmail! And there's no use jumping ou...
Laura Dannon: Listen, you're scratching at the wrong door. I didn't know Em well enough to know what she was in. I just got wind of the downfall. Brendan Frye: If you haven't got a finger in Em's troubles, why did her name get me into your rather exc...
What about you? What do you do?” I needed to ask questions, draw him out. I needed to find out all the information I could. My voice sounded strong and smooth, but my hands were shaking. I put them in my lap so he couldn’t see. “I prey on innoc...
We pretend that we know our children, because it's easier than admitting the truth--from the minute that cord is cut, they are strangers. It's far easier to tell yourself your daughter is still a little girl than to see her in a bikini and realize sh...
She leans over the desk to write and even though I feel bad for doing it, I watch her body as she does. Her shirt lifts just a little as she’s bending over and whether she’s aware of it or not, her lower back is exposed. I’ve spent the last eig...
It is convenient for the old men to blame Eve. To insist we are damned because a country girl talked to the snake one afternoon long ago. Children must starve in Somalia for that, and old women be abandoned in our greatest cities. It’s why we will ...
You ought to go to a boy's school sometime. Try it sometime," I said. "It's full of phonies, and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a goddam Cadillac some day, and you have to keep making believe you...
If I kissed her now, one of two things would happen. We’d either get naked right here on the beach and probably get arrested, or I’d somehow manage to get us up the hill to my house, and then we’d get naked. But kissing her once, then letting h...
I see you go bare-shod. This is most likely extremely sensible. Shoes are no end of trouble for girls. . . . How many have danced to death in slippers of silk and glass and fur and wood? Too many to count—the graveyards, they are so full these days...
Until a few days ago, humans had been little more than legend to him, and now here he was in their world. It was like stepping into the pages of a book -- a book alive with color and fragrance, filth and chaos -- and the blue-haired girl moved throug...
I was the Duff. And that was a good thing. Because anyone who didn't feel like the Duff must not have friends. Every girl feels unattractive sometimes. Why had it taken me so long to figure that out? Why had I been stressing over that dumb word for s...
The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happ...
Hell if I know. I’m twenty-six, single, just signed a year lease on an apartment…” She touched her eyebrows with her fingertips. “Damn, why did I move back here?” “Sorry.” I grimaced. “The job market isn’t as bad as it was. I’d gi...
His name feels like a secret, and now he's wearing it on his wrist. I want to know all about this girl who put it there. What she looks like. If she's got freckles, fair hair or dark, like his. If she's scrappy or etheral, funny or serious, scrape-kn...
On a nightstand in a teenager’s room, a glass vase filled with violets leans precariously against a wall. The only thing saving the vase from a thousand-piece death on the hardwood floor is the groove in the nightstand’s surface that catches the ...
Tell me about your day, your routine, and what you did at the drugstore when the dumb little girl charged you five cents instead of five dollars. Did you speak up? Are you all so lily-white? The harder it gets to be safe and secure, to trust, to find...
What's agitating about solitude is the inner voice telling you that you should be mated to somebody, that solitude is a mistake. The inner voice doesn't care about who you find. It just keeps pestering you, tormenting you--if you happen to be me--wit...
