It was one of those strange moments that came to him rarely, but never left. A moment that stamped itself on heart and brain, instantly recallable in every detail, for all of his life. There was no telling what made these moments different from any o...
Dante laughed. "No cold soup, no goat cheese. I'll make a mental note. And no Gottfried Curse." "And for you it's no food at all. No sleep. And no tunnels." "I'm low maintenance." "Is that what you are? Because I've been trying to figure it out all s...
I realize that some people will not believe that a child of little more than ten years is capable of having such feelings. My story is not intended for them. I am telling it to those who have a better knowledge of man. The adult who has learned to tr...
I did not see Pirahã teenagers moping, sleeping in late, refusing to accept responsibility for their own actions, or trying out what they considered to be radically new approaches to life. They in fact are highly productive and conformist members of...
There was rarely an obvious branching point in a person's life. People changed slowly, over time. You didn't take on step, then find yourself in a completely new location. You first took a little step off a path to avoid some rocks. For a while, you ...
[The Internet] affects democracy... As more and more citizens express what they think, and defend it in writing, that will change the way people understand public issues. It is easy to be wrong and misguided in your head. It is harder when the produc...
I suppose hobbits need some description nowadays, since they have become rare and shy of the Big People, as they call us. They are (or were) a little people, about half our height, and smaller than the bearded Dwarves. Hobbits have no beards. There i...
Not merely hope, but any burdensome yearning: ambition, hatred, love (especially love) - how rarely do our emotions meet the object they seem to deserve? How hopelessly we signal; how dark the sky; how big the waves. We are all lost at see, washed be...
Listen up, Mount High-Hair," Gustav barked. "Say what you want about me, but lay off the rest of the team. I've been through a lot of stuff with these people. Nobody can tell me that Fancy Dancer and Lady Slick-Pants aren't heroes. Captain Gloom-Cape...
Whoa, that's the kind of little sister I can dig!" said Edison. "Yes, we're all alike," I said. "We cover for you, we lie for you, we take the heat for you. We clean up your messes and mollify our parents for you. We never fail to come across with un...
One of my biggest weaknesses, one that has always shamed me, is that I have always been lonely. I've struggled to make friends because I can be socially awkward, because I'm weird, because I live in my head. When I was young, we moved around a lot, s...
Was he a good kisser, Ms. Lane?” Barrons asked, watching me carefully. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand at the memory. “It was like being owned.” Some women like that.” Not me.” Perhaps it depends on the man doing the owning.” I ...
I don't believe in greatness that is bestowed as a rare gift to a few lucky ones. Rather, I think all people have greatness inside them. It is just a matter of persistence--sticking to what you have envisioned until it is reality. I have a deep convi...
And he came to understand how those almost mystical bonds of trust and affection, if nurtured correctly, might lift a crew above the ordinary sphere, transport it to a place where nine boys somehow became one thing - a thing that could not quite be d...
It's not that racism doesn't exist. Lots of people in New York, and elsewhere, hate because of color and gender, religion and national origin. It's just that I rarely worry about those things because there's a real world underneath all that nonsense;...
The most tragic strain in human existence lies in the fact that the pleasure which we find in the things of this life, however good that pleasure may be in itself, is always taken away from us. The things for which men strive hardly ever turn out to ...
I read and reread and recommended and rarely rejected, became one of those readers who will read trashy stories as long as they're not too terrible--well, even perhaps the truly terrible ones--and will reread something she's already read, even if it'...
I wanted you to see something about her—I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it th...
The mercy bullet I envy horses: if they break a leg and feel humiliated because they can no longer charge back and forth in the wind, they are cured by a mercy bullet. So if something in me gets broken, physically or spiritually, I would do well to l...
How come when mortals want things, their only option is to make a deal with Hell and sell their soul? Why can’t they make deals with God in exchange for good behavior?" It was another of those rare moments when I’d surprised Carter. I waited for ...
Now he had chanced on one of he standard hard-on sessions of the shower, as on both sides of him and across the room three queens sported horizontal members which they turned around from time to time to conceal or display, barely exchanging looks as ...
