There are no commitments, only bargains. And they have to be made again every day. You think making a commitment is it. Finish. You think it sets like a concrete platform and it'll take any strain you want to put on it. You're committed. You don't ha...
This is terrific. What a gorgeous kitchen. You’ve decorated it so beautifully. Now you’re going to have to clear all the counters. Vases. Books. Knickknacks. Get rid of all that stuff. I mean, it is just beautiful. Beautiful. I love what you’ve...
Novelists congratulate themselves on their creation of this kind of “character” or that kind of “character,” and readers pretend to talk knowingly about “character,” but all it amounts to is that the writers are enjoying themselves writin...
I thought to myself how we were so wrapped up in this animal act, that he couldn’t care less about his tea shop business, and I couldn’t care less about my job. That’s real sex that is, real passion: where you abandon all your boringly sensible...
The flimsy little protestations that mark the front gate of every novel, the solemn statements that any resemblance to real persons living or dead is entirely coincidental, are fraudulent every time. A writer has no other material to make his people ...
When you say to yourself, 'I am going to have a pleasant visit or a pleasant journey,' you are literally sending elements and forces ahead of your body that will arrange things to make your visit or journey pleasant....Our thoughts, or in other words...
Around eighth grade Margot started getting really sensitive about her weight, even though she wasn’t remotely fat—just a little round-faced. So Margot did what any normal fourteen-year-old girl would do. She started puking on purpose, every day a...
You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop ...
Does the king know you're back?" "Nope! I'm trying to think of a properly dramatic way to inform him. Perhaps a hundred chasmfiends marching in unison, singing an ode to my magnificence." "That sounds… hard." "Yeah, the storming things have real tr...
Real loved one's aren't afraid, and will suggest to you, what's in your best interest... because they wouldn't want too see you suffer the consequences of your, sideways, emotional impulse(s). To see you crash and burn is the gratification of [the] '...
It is madness. And if you don't know who you are, or if your real self has drifted away from you with the undertow, madness at least gives you an identity. It's the same with self-loathing. You're probably just normal and normal-looking but that's no...
Love, being in love, isn’t a constant thing. It doesn’t always flow at the same strength. It’s not always like a river in flood. It’s more like the sea. It has tides, it ebbs and flows. The thing is, when love is real, whether it’s ebbing o...
Identifying Your Dream Some people can easily identify one primary dream. For others, a dream is more elusive. These people often have many dreams at once, or a general idea of a dream that never takes a specific shape.
Like so many of the other books I read, it never seemed to me like a book, but like a place I had lived in, had visited and would visit again, just as all the people in them, every blessed one – Anne of Green Gables, Heidi, Jay Gatsby, Elizabeth Be...
As a reader you recognise that feeling when you're lost in a book? You know the one - when whatever's going on around you seems less real than what you're reading and all you want to do is keep going deeper into the story whether it's about being hal...
Forms of Love: A man once decided that all perfection and beauty was in the tree. It gave fruit, shelter, materials for manufacturers. It did this, too, without apparently making demands. It was there for ‘good’ purposes. So he taught people that...
An ad that pretends to be art is -- at absolute best -- like somebody who smiles warmly at you only because he wants something from you. This is dishonest, but what's sinister is the cumulative effect that such dishonesty has on us: since it offers a...
What is a price? It is a proposed point of agreement between a buyer and seller. The proposal is the key. It is not a marching order. Past prices represent deals done in history. Current prices represent possible deals in the future. Prices embed vas...
[from extended version] [looking at the elvish rope] Frodo: We can't leave this here for someone to follow us down. Sam: Who's going to follow us down here, Mr. Frodo? Sam: It's a shame, really. Lady Galadriel gave me that. Real elvish rope. Sam: Wel...
Pat: Hey, my friend Ronnie is having this party on Sunday night and it's like a real hoity-toity thing. And his wife Veronica is a real stickler for... I don't know. My mom got this Gap outfit she wants me to wear, but I want to wear a jersey that my...
Real Harvey: [the real Harvey Pekar introduces his on-screen character] OK. This guy here, he's our man, all grown up and going nowhere. Although he's a pretty scholarly cat, he never got much of a formal education. For the most part, he's lived in s...
