To be commanded to love God at all, let alone in the wilderness, is like being commanded to be well when we are sick, to sing for joy when we are dying of thirst, to run when our legs are broken. But this is the first and great commandment nonetheles...
Family is not disparate relationships between individuals and machines, in separate rooms of a house. Childhood is not a race to accumulate all of the consumer goods and stresses of adulthood in record time. Simplification signals a change and makes ...
It's not a loup cage, you know,' I told her. 'It's a holding cell. Or safe room. or secure room. I don't think Jim ever settled on a term he could live with.' 'Aha. It's a loup cage.' Andrea cleared her throat. 'I touched it with my finger and it hur...
The air felt thick with the feeling between us, like it was filling the room: a room full of our carnal heat, our hot desire for each other. Both my hands were clenched on the tablecloth, bunching it tightly, as he continued to swipe the belt against...
But seriously Poirot, what a hobby! Compare that to--" his voice sank to an appreciative purr--"an easy chair in front of a wood fire in a long low room lined with books--must be a long room--not a square one. Books all round one. A glass of port--an...
And because no one answered or cared and a conversation went on without her she felt profoundly lonely, suspecting once more for herself a particular doom of exclusion. Something of the trees in their intimacy of shadow was shared by the husband and ...
I can hear the library humming in the night, a choir of authors murmuring inside their books along the unlit, alphabetical shelves, Giovanni Pontano next to Pope, Dumas next to his son, each one stitched into his own private coat, together forming a ...
But some nights, I must tell you, I go down there after everyone has fallen asleep. I swim back and forth in the echoing blackness. I sing a love song as well as I can, lost for a while in the home of the rain.
He(Samuel, known as 'the Pea') was as apprehensive, weak and nervous about things as Swaminathan was. The bond between them was laughter. They were able to see together the same absurdities and incongruities in things. The most trivial and unnoticeab...
Then there was Mani, the Mighty Good-For-Nothing. He towered above all the other boys of the class. He seldom brought any books to the class, and never bothered about homework. He came to the class, monopolized the last bench, ans slept bravely. No t...
Kitty, do you have the bottle?" "In my purse. Which is in my room. Not that I think I can find my room from here." "I'll get it," Martini said. He stood up and disappeared. Ten seconds later he was back, bottle in hand. "What kept you?" "That purse g...
In the end, it wasn't so much that there was an alternative narrative--there always was--but it came down to belief: Which one did you want to believe. Which one suited you best? Or, perhaps more to the point: Which one told the story you were alread...
Why are all reflections lovelier than what we call reality? -- not so grand or so strong, it may be, but always lovelier? Fair as is the gliding sloop on the shining sea, the wavering, trembling, unresting sail below is fairer still...All mirrors are...
Mathilde returned and strolled past the drawing-room windows; she saw him busily engaged in describing to Madame de Fervaques the old ruined castles that crown the steep banks of the Rhine and give them so distinctive a character. He was beginning to...
I sweat terror, Robyn! I'm scared every single second about every single goddamned thing. I worry obsessively about being buried under an avalanche of fear. Jesus, Robyn, I'm scared like only the truly crazy can be.' 'But , you dope, is the definitio...
In this world, perfection is an illusion. Reagrdless of all those who utter the contrary, this is the reality. Obviously mediocre fools will forever lust for perfection and seek it out. However, what meaning is there in perfection? None. Not a bit. ....
Do you wake up as I do, having forgotten what it is that hurts or where, until you move? There is a second of consciousness that is clean again. A second that is you, without memory or experience, the animal warm and waking into a brand new world. Th...
A tired man lay down his head in a dusty room so dim, and for so long his wife did shake and yell to waken him. Meanwhile his thoughts, his dreams, did stir of sandy, red bullfights, of powder-blasts in the air and carnival delights. Yet still his wi...
I died for beauty but was scarce Adjusted in the tomb, When one who died for truth was lain In an adjoining room. He questioned softly why I failed? "For beauty," I replied. "And I for truth, the two are one; We brethren are," he said. And so, as kin...
I have a very beautiful room that in my house that we bought in Princeton. It's glass on three sides, and you'd think that's the perfect place to write. Somehow in that nice room I feel too exposed, and I can notice I'm too distracted by things going...
Dumb Football Player: Coach. Coach, where's the men's room? Juno: I'm not your coach! *He* survived. Dumb Football Player #2: Wait, coach, let me get something straight. What's our curfew around here? Juno: Will you get out of here! Go on, get downst...
