I prefer the company of books. When I'm reading, I'm never alone, I have a conversation with the book. It can be very intimate. Perhaps you know this feeling yourself? The sense that you're having an intellectual exchange with the author, following h...
For Saffron," it said in shaky old writing on the damaged base, and on the other side, "Saffy's angel." Saffron, picking up the broken fragments one by one, said it didn't matter. She hugged Rose and Indigo and Caddy and Sarah, and said again and aga...
In this town you can be a wife-beating, manic-depressive crack-head and everyone opens their arms to you. They say, "Hey, pal, don't worry about it. We'll get you into recovery. It's all part of the journey." But if you become a born-again Christian ...
Do not be a people without a will of your own saying: If others treat well you will also treat well and if they do wrong we will do wrong; but accustom yourselves to do good if people do good and do not do wrong if they do evil.
It's because his wife left him. That's why he's acting funny. She left him the other night. While she was putting her bags into the taxi he was outside on the footpath begging her to stay. On his knees! Why are men so embarrassing? Bev
The fireworks went on for nearly half an hour, great pulsing strobes, fiery dandelions and starbursts of light brightening both sky and water. It was hard to tell which was reality and which was reflection, as if there were two displays, above and be...
I like to think of people as roses, as they grow older, they slowly and unwillingly start giving up on life, even though they want it. I like to think of people as roses, because I think that they don’t know how lovely they could be sometimes. And ...
Everybody does stupid things in life. Some of us more than others. You think you're going to get away with it. Or one or both of you just stop thinking. But it happens. And when it does, you can keep drinking it like poison, or you can put it behind ...
Grey morning dulled the bay. Banks of clouds, Howth just one more bank, rolled to sea, where other Howths grumbled to greet them. Swollen spumeless tide. Heads that bobbed like floating gulls and gulls that floating bobbed like heads. Two heads. At s...
That’s what money will buy you, in America,” Brown had said, firmly. “People say Americans are materialistic. But do you know why?” “Why?” asked Milgrim, more concerned with this uncharacteristically expansive mode of expression on Brown�...
Shimmel: “NEVER TRUST THE GOYIM. They are just like these other weird dangerous people, Messianic Jews! How dare Jews become “Christian-like”, Messianic? We should cherem (ban) them from every aspect of Jewish life. And we must strip them of ev...
Never forget that there are only two philosophies to rule your life: the one of the cross, which starts with the fast and ends with the feast. The other of Satan, which starts with the feast and ends with the headache.
Criticism of others is thus an oblique form of self-commendation. We think we make the picture hang straight on our wall by telling our neighbors that all his pictures are crooked.
Will laughed. 'I now know why fate linked you with Xav. You are going to tease each other unmercifully.' Victorthrew down a card. 'Might make the world a little safer for the rest of us then.' 'Unless they turn their powers jointly on us,' suggested ...
It wasn't a sign of weakness to tell what happened to me. I feel guilt no longer, only regret. The other emotions are coming around too. How much further do I need to go? I'm not sure, but there is comfort in the fact that I am in the hands of expert...
Names. What’s in a name, really? I mean, besides a bunch of letters or sounds strung together to make a word. Does a rose by any other name really smell as sweet? Would the most famous love story in the world be as poignant if it was called Romeo a...
A sense of accomplishment. It is the most important ingredient in any rational being's formula of happiness. It is the element that builds confidence and allows us to go on to other, greater tasks. It is the item that promotes a sense of self-worth, ...
Four of us,' said Morwen. The cats yowled. 'Yes, I know, and of course you're coming, but you can't carry a bucket of soapy water, so for the purposes of this discussion it doesn't matter,' she told them. The cats gave her an affronted look, turned t...
If there's one thing I've discovered, it's that stifling yourself will only lead to more misery. [...] I polluted all other happiness because I was afraid to let myself create and change. You have to have courage. Real courage to explore, to fail, an...
Dating is like trying to make a meal out of leftovers. Some leftovers actually get better when they've had a little time to mature. But others should be thrown out right away, No matter how you try to warm them up, they're never as good as when they ...
His father, that austere, unfeeling and untutored man, had insisted his sons polish their boots every evening. Flett has learned to be grateful for this early discipline. It kept him breathing as a boy, provided a pulse, gave order to vast incomprehe...
