You are infinitely my superior in merit; all that I know - You have qualities which I had not supposed to exist in such a degree in any human creature. You have some touches of the angel in you, beyond what - not merely beyond what one sees, because ...
The woman who later became his wife was sleeping in his bed, her face buried in the pillows and her feet crossed on top of each other like a child's. He watched her sleep and struggled to see her as she was, but what he saw instead were her muscles a...
The hallway led me to the stairway of a million steps. My leg screamed in protest. I sighed and started climbing. I just had to keep from limping. Limping showed weakness, and I didn’t need any enterprising, career-motivated shapeshifters trying to...
Did he show himself?” Nash asked, and I glanced to my right to see him staring at my father, as fascinated as I was. My dad nodded. “He was an arrogant little demon.” “So what happened?” I asked. “I punched him.” For a moment, we stared...
New Rule: America has every right ot bitch about gas prices suddenly shooting up. How could we have known? Oh, wait, there was that teensy, tiny thing about being warned constantly over the last forty years but still creating more urban sprawl, faili...
Parents and schoolteachers counsel black children that, if they ever hope to escape this system and avoid prison time, they must be on their best behavior, raise their arms and spread their legs for the police without complaint, stay in failing schoo...
But how did you know that it was Stacy?” “There wasn’t a green light flashing, that’s for sure,” he said. “Mostly, I felt I’d met a person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. That I didn’t need to look any further.”” “Bu...
He wanted it to be just right; he didn’t want to make the mistake of trying to tell her he loved her, and having the words come out confused or ending up saying something completely different. He changed into a fresh suit, checked his hair and took...
It’s what we’re all trying to do, right? Remember a time that was better. Re-create a moment of that memory as we let the crisp Coke bubble down our throats. Riding bikes on a summer day. Sitting on the curb and watching the streetlights come on....
Look, Mrs. McGillicuddy, it's not my fault your son jumped out a dorm room window on Christmas eve. I've written over fifty books as a Columbia professor, all right? You don't do that by holding hands with every at-risk undergraduate who says he's ho...
I know this goes without saying, but Stonehenge really was the most incredible accomplishment. It took five hundred men just to pull each sarsen, plus a hundred more to dash around positioning the rollers. Just think about it for a minute. Can you im...
Mama, I know you used to ride the bus. Riding the bus and it’s hot and bumpy and crowded and too noisy and more than anything in the world you want to get off and the only reason in the world you don’t get off is it’s still fifty blocks from wh...
You know Sven? The man who takes care of the gym?' he asked. He waited till he got a nod from Nicholson. 'Well, if Sven dreamed tonight that his dog died, he'd have a very, very bad night's sleep, because he's very fond of that dog. But when he woke ...
This was not the time to say “I don’t know.” The brothers had begging, hungry looks, like dogs waiting to be fed. They wanted an answer. It would be nice if it was the right answer, but if it couldn’t be, then any answer would do, because the...
Son of a bitch!" Cash erupted. "He's wearing Nate's guns." Reese had been too occupied gazing into those eyes to notice the oddity of a gun belt strapped around a naked waist. Cash was right. Those were Nate's pretty pearl pistols. Reese had never li...
I am forty years old now, and you know forty years is a whole lifetime; you know it is extreme old age. To live longer than forty years is bad manners, is vulgar, immoral. Who does live beyond forty? Answer that, sincerely and honestly. I will tell y...
Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable? . Let us reflect that it is inhabited by a thousand millions of people. That these profess probably a...
In the recurring dream everything has already fallen down, and I’m underneath. I’m crawling, sometimes for days, under the rubble. And as I crawl I realize that this one was the Big One. It was the earthquake that shook the whole world, and every...
Thanks,” I muttered and added under my breath, “Douchebag.” He laughed, deep and throaty. “Now that’s not very ladylike, Kittycat.” I whipped around. “Don’t ever call me that,” I snapped. “It’s better than calling someone a douc...
Sophia sat in meditation on the riverbank when a student bent down to place two enormous pearls at her feet as a gift. She opened her eyes to see the pearls. She picked one up, but dropped it. It rolled down the hill upon which she was sitting and in...
Just as sex is a God-given instinct for the prolongation of the human race, so the desire for property as a prolongation of one's ego is a natural right sanctioned by natural law. A person is free on the inside because he can call his soul his own; h...
