But he could never be a made guy himself because of his tainted blood, some Sunset Park Puerto Rican on his father's side, even though he was raised Italian. Chili didn't care to be made anyway, get into all that bullshit having to do with respect. I...
Now he saw another elephant emerge from the place where it had stood hidden in the trees. Very slowly it walked to the mutilated body and looked down. With its sinuous trunk it struck the huge corpse; then it reached up, broke some leafy branches wit...
My work with teenagers has convinced me that one of the main reasons teenagers are not excited by the gospel is that they do not think they need it. Many parents have successfully raised self-righteous little Pharisees. When they look at themselves, ...
Parents raise children then grow old, and their children forget the things their old parents did for them, because their brains don’t remember before they grew selfish. There are buildings all over the world full of old people sitting around lookin...
I don’t know what’s going on with you and Travis, but I know that he’s going to do something stupid to piss you off. It’s a tic he has. He doesn’t get close with anyone very often, and for whatever reason he’s let you in. But you have to ...
Asita had been raised on this knowledge. He knew also that all these planes merged into each other like wet dyed cloths hung too close on the line, the blue bleeding into the red, the red into the saffron yellow. Lokas were apart and together at the ...
The sound is gone. There's nothing left but the insomniac throbbing of crickets. Crickets in the garden, the courtyard, the back courtyard. Close, domestic, identifiable. And those out in the country. Between all of them they raise, little by little,...
Poseidon raised his eyebrows as they shook hands. “Blowfish, did you say?” "Ah, no. Blofis, actually.” "Oh, I see,” Poseidon said. “A shame. I quite like blowfish. I am Poseidon.” "Poseidon? That’s an interesting name.” "Yes, I like i...
Mr. Thomas, did you know that in an experiment with a human observer, subatomic particles behave differently from the way they behave when the experiment is observed while in progress and the results are examined, instead, only after the fact?" "Sure...
Dinah and I were raised to believe money taints ordinary people, obstructs virtue, and makes a fool out of you. So, the inheritance was like a tiger somebody’d left on the doorstep of my house, and I had to figure out something to do with it. Havin...
Well I'm not kissing the mundane," said Jace. "I'd rather stay down here and rot." "Forever?" said Simon. "Forever is an awfully long time." Jace raised his eyebrows, "I knew it," he said, "you want to kiss me, don't you?" Simon threw his hands up in...
And loneliness. I should say something of loneliness. The panic, the sweeping hysteria that comes not when you are without others, but when you are without yourself, adrift. I should describe the filthy province of mind, the blighted district inside,...
Each food items in a typical U.S. meal has traveled an average of 1,500 miles....If every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce we would reduce our country's oil consumption by o...
You raise them half-decent, and they grow up and leave. They move to Miami or California-- someplace with gourmet groceries and nude beaches because you've reared them to cook good and be liberal minded. It's just the opposite with your failures-- th...
It's a sweet setup, I'll admit. For all that the maids STILL show up each day with jumbo crucifixes, jumpy movements, and red eyes from crying over the short straw that drew them vampire duty.' Yesterday, she'd just stopped herself from raising her c...
With a gentle touch, she brushed the hair off his forehead. "I was sort of hoping you'd be a little more relaxed today." He took her hand and kissed it. "I'm very relaxed." "Finally?" She raised her eyebrows and snuggled closer. "You feel a little st...
How could you give me life, and take from me all the inappreciable things that raise it from the state of conscious death? Where are the graces of my soul? Where are the sentiments of my heart? What have you done, oh, Father, What have you done with ...
That's how it was on Irving Circle and how I was raised: You made the best out of what was within reach, which meant friendships engineered by parents and by the happenstance of housing. I stayed with it because we both had queenly older sisters who ...
It‘s utterly astounding that every time I get knocked down God’s mercy compassionately raises me to my feet; His grace thoroughly brushes off every trace of assorted filth I accumulated in the fall, His word precisely recalibrates my direction to...
literally: This word should be deleted. All too often, actions described as “literally” did not happen at all. As in, “He literally jumped out of his skin.” No, he did not. Though if he literally had, I’d suggest raising the element and pro...
The more Adams thought about the future of his country, the more convinced he became that it rested on education. Before any great things are accomplished, he wrote to a correspondent, a memorable change must be made in the system of education and kn...
