Nadya Zelenin and her mother had returned from a performance of Eugene Onegin at the theatre. Going into her room, the girl swiftly threw off her dress and let her hair down. Then she quickly sat at the table in her petticoat and white bodice to writ...
Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when others were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and j...
In high school, we barely brushed against Ogden Nash, Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, or any of the other so-unserious writers who delight everyone they touch. This was, after all, a very expensive and important school. Instead, I was force-fed a few of ...
Live a life abundant in love and rich in spirit, these are the seeds of a fulfilling existence. Be the safe harbor you seek in the world. Follow your dreams, not your fear. Go into the New Year with an open mind and hopeful heart. Don't let the chain...
Jorge de Burgos: Laughter is a devilish wind which deforms, uh, the lineaments of the face and makes men look like monkeys. William of Baskerville: Monkeys do not laugh. Laughter is particular to men. Jorge de Burgos: As is sin. Christ never laughed....
By exiling human judgment in the last few decades, modern law changed role from useful tool to brainless tyrant. This legal regime will never be up to the job, any more than the Soviet system of central planning was, because ti can't think. The comed...
A silent Library is a Library. A Library without patrons on whom to pile books and tales and knowing and magazines full of up-to-the-minute politickal fashions and atlases and plays in pentameter! A Library should be full of exclamations! Shouts of d...
It always pisses me off when I’m calling in to some Morning Zoo radio show to promote God-only-knows what—probably this book, so get ready, I’m comin’—when the DJ actually tries to convince me that there are as many female comics as male on...
Jerry Langford: Alright, look pal, I gotta tell you... this is a crazy business, but it's not unlike any other business. There are ground rules, and you don't just walk on to a network show without experience. Now I know it's an old, hackneyed expres...
Asshole.” “Just for that, I expect you to wrap that dirty mouth of yours around my cock tonight.” He narrowed his eyes on me. I couldn’t believe he’d just said that to me in a fancy restaurant where anyone might overhear. “Are you kidding...
Mallory: [On Andrea] He's going to kill me when the war's over. Major Franklin: You're not serious. Mallory: Yes, I am. So is he. [pause] Mallory: About a year ago, I gave a German patrol a safe passage to get some of their wounded into hospital. I g...
Celine: You know, I've been wondering lately. Do you know anyone who's in a happy relationship? Jesse: Uh, yeah, sure. I know happy couples. But I think they lie to each other. Celine: Hmf. Yeah. People can lead their life as a lie. My grandmother, s...
Art has no immediate future because all art is collective and there is no more collective life(there are only dead collections of people), and also because of this breaking of the true pact between the body and the soul. Greek art coincided with the ...
For a while, Criticism travels side by side with the Work, then Criticism vanishes and it's the Readers who keep pace. The journey may be long or short. Then the Readers die one by one and the Work continues on alone, although a new Criticism and new...
All real estate agents should be put on a decommissioned naval frigate which is then towed out into the deepest part of the Atlantic and sunk. It's rather unfortunate that, in recent years, real estate agents have become comedy betes-noires. Rather l...
BOTTOM There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisby that will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill himself; which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that? SNOUT By'r lakin, a parlous fear. STARVELING I believe we must ...
It's too soon, too fast. We don't even know each other." "Says who?" Ethan demanded. "Who decides how long it should take? Who makes the rules?" Erica shrugged because she really didn't know it just seemed like common sense. He put his index finger u...
In my living room there are two large bookcases, each one eight feet tall, and they have about five hundred books between them. If I step up to a shelf and look at the books one by one, I can remember something about each. As a historian once said, s...
Not only to myself or before the mirror or at the hour of my death, which I hope will be long in coming, but in the presence of my children and my wife and in the face of the peaceful life I’m building, I must acknowledge: (1) That under Stalin I w...
Calling a book "Young Adult" is just a fancy way of saying the book is censored. People used to say they like to read books about romance, true crime, comedy, horror or science fiction. But these days people simply say they like to read "Young Adult"...
The young man, who does not know the future, sees life as a kind of epic adventure, an Odyssey through strange seas and unknown islands, where he will test and prove his powers, and thereby discover his immortality. The man of middle years, who has l...
