The fact is that nothing is more difficult to believe than the truth; conversely, nothing seduces like the power of lies, the greater the better. It's only natural, and you will have to find the right balance. Having said that, let me add that this p...
Fanny spoke her feelings. "Here's harmony!" said she; "here's repose! Here's what may leave all painting and all music behind, and what may tranquillise every care, and lift the heart to rapture! When I look out on such a night as this, I feel as if ...
While they were dancing, the buoyancy that the champagne had given her left her all at once, and she slumped and felt suddenly tired and miserable about all the things that Denys should have said and done and hadn't. At the end of the dance there was...
Look, girls know when they’re cute,” he said. “You don’t have to tell them. All they need to do is look in the mirror. I have one friend out in New York, an attorney. She moved out there after the school year to take the bar. She doesn’t ha...
I remember when I was twenty-five,” he said. “No client comes to you when you’re twenty-five. It’s like when you are looking for a doctor. You don’t want the new one that just graduated. You don’t want the very old one, the one shaking, t...
I ripped my left arm out of his hand and slammed my elbow into his solar plexus. He exhaled in a gasp. I lunged for the dagger and sat on top of him, my knees pinning his arms, my dagger on his throat. He lay still. “I give up,” he said and smile...
I said, I know why you’re afraid to fight with me.” "And why is that?” If he flexed again, I’d have to implement emergency measures. Maybe I could kick some sand at him or something. Hard to look hot brushing sand out of your eyes. "You want ...
Kate?” I have a superior reaction time. That was why although I shot out of my chair, jumped onto my desk, and attempted to stab the intruder into my office in the throat, I stopped the blade two inches before it touched Andrea’s neck. Because sh...
We've been told that with regard to seduction, "candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker," but in truth, rather, properly selected: "candy makes randy; liquor makes desire flicker"; or, as Shakespeare's porter said to Macduff: "[drink] provokes the desi...
From Time for College - Mr. Chiardi & Other Stories It was time for Junior to go to college. He’d sprouted pubic hair and was eyeing all the girls. “I want to go to college,” he said. “Yes,” I replied, “It’s time.” His mother, my wife...
WL’s [White Liberals] think all the world’s problems can be fixed without any cost to themselves. We don’t believe that. There’s a lot to be said for sacrifice, remorse, even pity. It’s what separates us from roaches
Charity felt crumpled and wrung out after her cry, like a sponge that had gone through a week of dishes. Of course Lady Beddington said things would be better in the morning, after a good night's sleep. Charity found it was a struggle to believe her;...
I thought of a sign I had seen... another scary time, when I was two hundred feet up in a giant karri tree in South West Australia. At the point where the precarious spiral ladder grew even steeper and narrower to reach the fire-watch platform atop t...
Long ago, the gods argued over where to hide the secret to happiness, so that in finding it, the people would appreciate its importance. One god suggested a high mountain-top. Another wanted to bury it deep in some unknown land. And yet another said ...
You want to stab me again, don't you?" He didn't look at all ashamed. "Think of it as testing the limits of your new abilities." I groaned. "I've created a monster." "I don't think someone who recently crawled from the grave should be throwing around...
When you go, if you go, And I should want to die, there's nothing I'd be saved by more than the time you fell asleep in my arms in a trust so gentle I let the darkening room drink up the evening, till rest, or the new rain lightly roused you awake. I...
And I start to say, no. Start to ask him to please just take it off and put it away. Start to explain how it holds far too many memories for me. But then I remember what Damen said once about memories - that they're haunting things. And because I ref...
Ramon looked closely at the little guy as he ate. "Maybe he's Jewish. I mean, if Sammy Davis Jr. could convert to Judaism, why not a chupacabra? We should name him Harry Mendelbaum." I held up my arms in protest. "You're all racist. Now shut up. We'l...
The rocking of the boat by the waves was soothing but unknown. The men on the shore were asleep. Not the twelve-year-old, though. He shifted and lay on his back and decided to look up at the sky. What he saw took him by surprise. He was basically a c...
It used to be said, not so long ago, that every suicide gave Satan special pleasure. I don't think that's true—unless it isn't true either that the Devil is a gentleman. If the Devil has no class at all, then okay, I agree: He gets a bang out of su...
I spoke to you all of the Wheel,” he said quietly. “The Wheel turns and unless we are alert an opportunity is snatched or taken, for us or against us. In a place, which you shall see, the Nine have preserved for centuries a truth—knowledge of a...
