It would be inappropiate, undignified, at 38, to conduct friendships or love affairs with the ardour or intensity of a 22 year old. Falling in love like that? Writing poetry? Crying at pop songs? Dragging people into photobooths? Taking a whole day t...
From out of nowhere, Phury felt an overwhelming tide of guilt, like someone had popped the lid off all his deepest concerns and his fears for the future of the race. He had to respond to it, couldn't bear the pressure. Riding the wave, he found himse...
There was an old saying in my household when I was growing up: “Never eat the Cheerios after your brother’s pissed in the milk.” Of course, since my pops had to work three jobs to support us, we often did have to finish our cereal, no matter if...
And there was never a better time to delve for pleasure in language than the sixteenth century, when novelty blew through English like a spring breeze. Some twelve thousand words, a phenomenal number, entered the language between 1500 and 1650, about...
The passenger door was wide open, nobody was around, and a purse was inside. Was this a trap? It seemed too good to be true. Temptation overtook me, so I reached in the car, popped the trunk, and closed myself in. Boy, the owner of the car was sure i...
Be ruthless about protecting writing days, i.e., do not cave in to endless requests to have "essential" and "long overdue" meetings on those days. The funny thing is that, although writing has been my actual job for several years now, I still seem to...
Otto: Don't call me stupid. Wendy: Why on earth not? Otto: Oh, you English are *so* superior, aren't you? Well, would you like to know what you'd be without us, the good ol' U.S. of A. to protect you? I'll tell you. The smallest fucking province in t...
Earl McGraw: Well, give me the gory details, Son Number One. Edgar McGraw: It's a goddamn massacre, Pop. They wiped out the whole wedding party, execution-style. Earl McGraw: Give me a figure. Edgar McGraw: Nine dead bodies. And we're talking the who...
Verbal: He lets the last Hungarian go. He waits until his wife and kids are in the ground and then he goes after the rest of the mob. He kills their kids, he kills their wives, he kills their parents and their parents' friends. He burns down the hous...
Tallahassee: [referring to Wichita and Little Rock, who previously hijacked them] They're in the back, aren't they? Little Rock: [pops up holding shotgun] Just me. Columbus: I'm really sorry. She was like a crouching tiger... Tallahassee: You got tak...
Field Marshal Model's aide: Field Marshall, thousands of paratroops have landed in this area, three kilometres from here. Field Marshall Walther Model: What? Why? There is nothing important here... me! I'm important! They must've landed here just to ...
Marriage I think For women Is the best of opiates. It kills the thoughts That think about the thoughts, It is the best of opiates. So said Maria. But too long in solitude she'd dwelt, And too long her thoughts had felt Their strength. So when the man...
Children, awkward, isolate, their bodies crammed to bursting with caffein and sugar and pop music and cologne and perfume and hairgel and pimple cream and growth hormone-treated hamburger meat and premature sex drives and costly, fleeting, violent su...
Alec licked his spoon, then set it on the table and popped his drink open. "Okay, I may be breaking some kind of girl bonding rule or something, but can I offer you a guy's perspective on this?" I frowned, my spoon halfway to my mouth. "Is this gonna...
The most flattering spin I can put on this phase of paradoxes and metaphysical tangles is that I was smart enough, at age fourteen, to destroy any fledgling hypothesis I came up with. A tentative explanation, theory, or formulation would pop up in my...
In fact, Lig never formally resigned his editorship—he merely left his office late one morning, and has never returned since. Though well over a century has now passed, many members of the Guide staff still retain the romantic notion that he has si...
We have all lived through that shriveling moment when a parent walks into a room and repeats, with sardonic disbelief, a couplet picked up from the stereo or the TV. 'What does that mean, then?' my mother asked me during Top of the Pops. "Get it on /...
I regretted what a serious teenager I'd been: There were no posters of pop stars or favorite movies, no girlish collection of photos or corsages. Instead there were paintings of sailboats, proper pastel pastorals, a portrait of Eleanor Roosevelt. The...
[John] watched the flames for a while. "I would have to say that I find God in serving His children. 'When I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me to drink, I was a stanger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, sick and yo...
[...] Tess and I are a good match. She understands intimately where I came from. She can cheer me up on my darkest days. It's as if she came perfectly happy home instead of what Kaede just told me. I feel a relaxing warmth at the thought, realizing s...
How lucky country children are in these natural delights that lie ready to their hand! Every season and every plant offers changing joys. As they meander along the lane that leads to our school all kinds of natural toys present themselves for their d...
