I watched as Humphrey Bogart’s character used beans as a metaphor for the relative unimportance in the wider world of his relationship with Ingrid Bergman’s character, and chose logic and decency ahead of his selfish emotional desires. The quanda...
I have gone into town to buy a few last things we need for the expedition: Peruvian wasp repellent, toothbrushes, canned peaches, and a fireproof canoe. It will take a while to find the peaches, so don't expect me back until dinnertime. Stephano, Gus...
Simply put, dramatic irony is when a person makes a harmless remark, and someone else who hears it knows something that makes the remark have a different, and usually unpleasant, meaning. For instance, if you were in a restaurant and said out loud, "...
And so it goes. And so it goes. And so it goes. And so it goes goes goes goes goes tick tock tick tock tick tock and one day we no longer let time serve us, we serve time and we are slaves of the schedule, worshipers of the sun's passing, bound into ...
Every man has a weakness," he patiently explained. "I'll find theirs, I promise you." "Every man?" "Yes," he answered emphatically. His hand moved to the back of her neck. Twisting her curls around his fist, he jerked her head back. His face loomed o...
Writing about the indignities of old age: the daunting stairway to the restaurant restroom, the benefits of a wheelchair in airports and its disadvantages at cocktail parties, giving the user what he described as a child's-eye view of the party and a...
In the half-century of his life, a tick on the Doomsday clock, he had borne witness to the most unbelievable technological advances. He had started off listening to an old Bush radio in the corner of the living room and now he had a phone in his hand...
We are not quite novels. The analogy he is looking for is almost there. We are not quite short stories. At this point, his life is seeming closest to that. In the end, we are collected works. He has read enough to know that there are no collections w...
All this occupied his thoughts when he revisited the places of his war. Tramping over soil fed by the blood of men he had led and whose faces now stirred in his memory, it was his wife's response that came - as if in compensation for too little said ...
I'm gonna take all my sadness, frustration, anger and energy and channel it into becoming the best possible student. I am going to become a learning machine... Go ahead, go to all your parties. Go ahead and go home to your families and friends every ...
The bathroom’s down the hall if you want to take off your tights. I can throw ‘em in the dryer for you if you want. Or, you can hang them on the shower curtain rod.” He turned. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had a woman’s tights drap...
Soap wasn't invented until the Romans, who also invented interesting sex. (Since my editor informs me that a gardening book is not a proper venue for discussions of interesting sex, I will go into this topic in more detail when I write my private mem...
So, how’d you get the tattoo?” she said. “Drunken frat boys don’t say no to things their drunken frat brothers are telling them to do.” “That almost sounds like an admission of weakness from the invulnerable Andrew Sheffield.” “Not we...
The parasail's winch turned, winding up the line, pulling Ally and Serena lower and closer to him in a steady pull. A funny feeling seized him as he watched her. Logically, he knew she kept getting closer, but he suddenly knew she’d never arrive. S...
... respecto al origen del mundo, si es que lo tuvo, no nos queda más remedio que aceptar que nunca sabremos cómo ocurrió y que Dios es una explicación necia que no explica nada pues es tan difícil imaginar la eternidad suya como la de la materi...
If we look back into history for the character of present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Paga...
Make doing your best a habit, and you’ll never know not doing your best. If you build roads, then build them Roman—make them last two thousand years. Dig ditches as if you were taking them to the state fair to win another blue ribbon for best dit...
He had taken a few days' leave from his army training and they had taken refuge in the Charing Cross Hotel while an unexploded bomb in the Strand was being dealt with. They could hear the naval guns that had been stationed on trolleys between Vauxhal...
You must go further than I did," Nedra said. "You know that." "Further?" "With your life. You must become free." She did not explain it; she could not. It was not a matter of living alone, though in her case this had been necessary. The freedom she m...
The book was in her lap; she had read no further. The power to change one’s life comes from a paragraph, a lone remark. The lines that penetrate us are slender, like the flukes that live in river water and enter the bodies of swimmers. She was exci...
Above all, mine is a love story. Unlike most love stories, this one involves chance, gravity, a dash of head trauma. It began with a coin toss. The coin came up tails. I was heads. Had it gone my way, there might not be a story at all. Just a chapter...
