I have often been charged with falsehood and hypocrisy, yet there lives not the man who would more gladly than I speak truthfully and lay bare his heart; but as I have not one idea, one feeling in common with the people who surround me, as the very f...
You're not just doing that to impress her, are you?" "Everything I do is to impress her. It's my mission in life," he said with a completely serious face, while he squeezed my knee under the table. Mom burst out laughing. "I like him," she said. "Me ...
Listen, I wanted to say, I don't need your judgment, okay? I have enough to deal with without you contributing, so can we just get on with this so I can get out of here? But I couldn't form the words. Dr. Johnson viewed me as a child, and somehow, un...
Since there is no one else to praise me, I will praise myself -- will say that I have never tampered with a single tooth in my thought machine, such as it is. There are teeth missing, God knows -- some I was born without, teeth that will never grow. ...
Have you ever heard somebody sing some lyrics that you've never sung before, and you realize you've never sung the right words in that song? You hear them and all of a sudden you say to yourself, 'Life in the Fast Lane?' That's what they're saying ri...
The fact is that nothing is more difficult to believe than the truth; conversely, nothing seduces like the power of lies, the greater the better. It's only natural, and you will have to find the right balance. Having said that, let me add that this p...
In one way, I suppose, I have been "in denial" for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light. But for precisely that reason, I can't see myself smiting my brow with shock or hear myself whinin...
Something about this made Reynie uneasy. Had he done so badly? Was this meant to test his courage? He did as he was told, closing his eyes and bracing himself as best he could. "Why are you flinching?" the pencil woman asked. "I don't know. I thought...
They really kicked me out?" "Refunded the tuition and everything." Julie blinked a couple of times coming to grips with this tidbit. "So what happens now?" "I expect you'll be a bum. Homeless and jobless begging on the street for a crust of bread..."...
When you see me in a scarf you may think “Oh, she went to some trouble there.” But no, when I wear a scarf it means” this grey blouse was unwrinkled and those mocha pants make my behind look fine and voila I have a vivid grey,brown and white si...
I do believe that when a man confesses to his neighbor and says he's sorry, he thinks more of him than he did before. You see, we all know we have done wrong, but we haven't usually confessed it. And it's a funny thing, but when the time comes when t...
Are you French?' I asked instead. 'Oui!' Foreign. Foreign spy. French Communist Party acted on Stalin's instructions during part of World War II. French Communist spy. Stop it stop it stop it I turned to Art, a black kid who was a foot and a half tal...
The body is transmuted into other forms, worms batten on it, it helps to feed the grass, and some animal consumes the grass. But as for the survival of the individual spirit of a man, show me one tittle of scientific evidence to support it. Besides, ...
If you will tell me when God permits a Christian to lay aside his armour, I will tell you when Satan has left off temptation. Like the old knights in war time, we must sleep with helmet and breastplate buckled on, for the arch-deceiver will seize our...
And I would have answered: "The knottier the branch, the more twisted and misshapen, the more bent people called it, the harder it is to find it a place among the smooth planks, the more people agree that it should be thrown on the fire, the more use...
It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm amo...
God help me, how Tolstoy sweats over drying up people's sources of life, of wild and joyful life, drying them up and making the world fat with the love of God and everyman. ... But the man is old, after all, his fountains of life run dry, without a t...
The over-weight and out of shape guy who owned the house had apparently decided that having a half-million dollar house meant that he couldn’t afford to hire someone to clean out his gutters. Now he was dead with what looked to me like a broken nec...
Have you ever found your heart's desire and then lost it? I had seen myself, a portrait of myself as a reader. My childhood: days home sick from school reading Nancy Drew, forbidden books read secretively late at night. Teenage years reading -trying ...
Me parece que de nada vale correr si siempre ha de irse por el mismo camino, cerrado, de nuestra personalidad. Unos seres nacen para vivir, otros para trabajar, y otros para mirar la vida. Yo tenia un pequeño y ruin papel de espectadora. Imposible s...
Men got two guns, you know. One for now," he tapped the barrel of his gun against her nose. "And one for later." When his free hand went to his zipper, she twisted underneath him, bringing her knee into his groin and pulling her knife from her boot. ...
