I am here alone for the first time in weeks, to take up my "real" life again at last. That is what is strange - that friends, even passionate love, are not my real life unless there is time alone in which to explore and to discover what is happening ...
Only a fool will deny that an abundance of flowers can quicken a woman's blood, and that continuing sun can burn years off a man's back. The poverty of life here augments the power of those influences. We lose our vision, and move like wooden toys: o...
I made cranberry sauce, and when it was done put it into a dark blue bowl for the beautiful contrast. I was thinking, doing this, about the old ways of gratitude: Indians thanking the deer they'd slain, grace before supper, kneeling before bed. I was...
My name used to be in the papers daily As having dined somewhere, Or traveled somewhere, Or rented a house in Paris, Where I entertained the nobility. I was forever eating or traveling, Or taking the cure at Baden-Baden. Now I am here to do honor To ...
Everything goes, everything comes back; eternally rolls the wheel of being. Everything dies, everything blossoms again; eternally runs the year of being. Everything breaks, everything is joined anew; eternally the same House of Being is built. Everyt...
If Cinderella were given a single shining epiphany (instead of a fairy godmother), she would have realized: "This is my father's house. This is my father's estate. I am the rightful heiress to everything here!" then she would have said: "Get off of m...
On page 605, Blumenthal says that 'I made friends with Hitchens's friends the novelists Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie.' True in its way. I particularly remember the occasion when he called me up and invited me to dinner with Dick Morris, but only on...
On our way back to her house, I didn’t look at the city lights any longer. I looked into the sky and felt as if the moon was following us. When I was a child, my grandmother told me that the sky speaks to those who look and listen to it. She said, ...
I had not seen "Pride and Prejudice," till I read that sentence of yours, and then I got the book. And what did I find? An accurate daguerreotyped portrait of a common-place face; a carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden, with neat borders and de...
Sing a song of suspense in which the players die. Four and twenty ravens in an Edgar Allan Pie. When the pie was broken, the ravens couldn't sing. Their throats had been sliced open by Stephen, the new King. The King was in his writing house, stiflin...
The idea for Maximum Ride come from the earlier books of mine called When the Wind Blows and The Lake House, which also feature a character named Max who escapes from a quiet despicable school. Most of the similarities end there. Max and the other ki...
Cyrus wanted a woman to take care of Adam. He needed someone to keep house and cook, and a servant cost money. He was a vigorous man and needed the body of a woman, and that too cost money- unless you were married to it. Within two weeks Cyrus had wo...
White House Man: We have to control the intelligence from Saigon. Lyndon B. Johnson: Well don't let McNamara start sticking his damn nose in this thing! Every time he goes over to Saigon on some fuckin' fact-finding mission, he comes back and just sc...
The Writer: At the beginning of the school year, Vern had buried a quart jar of pennies underneath his house. He drew a treasure map so he could find them again. A week later, his mom cleaned out his room and threw away the map. Vern had been trying ...
Bernard: Otho, I didn't realize you were into the supernatural. Otho: Well, of course! You remember, after my stint with the Living Theatre. I was one of New York City's leading paranormal researchers, until the bottom dropped out in '72. Beryl: [cyn...
[about his wife] Frank Alexander: She was very badly raped, you see! We were assaulted by a gang of vicious, young, hoodlums in this house! In this very room you are sitting in now! I was left a helpless cripple, but for her the agony was too great! ...
Mr. White: Hello? James Bond: Mr. White? We need to talk. Mr. White: Who is this? [a shot rings out. White's leg is shattered. He drops to the ground in obvious pain and drags himself toward the house. He is stopped at the steps by the feet of a man ...
Mr. Parker: You filty sicken hook-aid! Oh, smelly wok buster! Grout shell fratten house stickle fifer! You bladder puss nut grafter! Dorton hoper... Ralphie as Adult: What happened next was a family controversy for years. Mr. Parker: You wart mundane...
Donnie: I was in jail once. I mean I accidentally burned down this house. It was abandoned, but still, I got held back in school and I can't drive until I'm 21. But I'm over all of that. I... I... I'm painting and stuff. Writing. I want to be a write...
[Roberta Sparrow finds her mailbox empty and walk back to her house, only to turn around halfway] Sean Smith: Oh, wait, wait, wait. She goes - She's going back to the box. We may still have mail. Ronald Fisher: Mail, mail, mail. Sean Smith: Here it i...
Narrator: [as Grace attempts to make her case] If forgiveness was close at hand in the mission house, they were all hiding it well. It hadn't been easy for Tom to get them there. Appealing to consciences stowed farther and farther away by their owner...
