That night she looked like the most beautiful girl I’d seen outside a sticky nudie magazine. She had a glow about her, like a pink neon shop sign on the outskirts of Orafouraville that says “Rose is For Sale.” Prostitution or a grammatically in...
I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from ...
Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower Quiet friend who has come so far, feel how your breathing makes more space around you. Let this darkness be a bell tower and you the bell. As you ring, what batters you becomes your strength. Move back and forth into...
I. At Tea THE kettle descants in a cosy drone, And the young wife looks in her husband's face, And then in her guest's, and shows in her own Her sense that she fills an envied place; And the visiting lady is all abloom, And says there was never so sw...
When I say "The good man gave his good dog a good meal," I use "good" analogically, for there is at the same time a similarity and a difference between a good man, a good dog, and a good meal. All three are desirable, but a good man is wise and moral...
Her endeavor was misguided and wrong and maybe plain crazy, akin to someone waking up one day and deciding he’s going to scale Kilimanjaro because he can’t stop imagining the view from the top, the picture so arresting and beautiful that it too s...
I had a lot of Hell that God needed to squeeze out of me, and believe me, sometimes when the Hell leaves you it screams at God on the way out. And when the pain from your past leaves you, sometimes you have to feel it again on the way out. There's no...
Sunny put on eyebrows, eyelashes, makeup, matching pajamas, a silk robe, and then say looking at herself in the vanity mirror in her bathroom. She had experienced moments in her life when she realized that she was actually alive and living in the wor...
A curiosity: my name, Rem, will someday come to mean a line of text in a language spoken only by machines. Specifically, it will mean a line that the machines can safely ignore--one that's only there as a mnemonic, a placeholder, for the people who g...
Kathel grabbed Mahgen so fast it shocked her, causing her to let out a sharp gasp. With his hands on her shoulders, he shook her lightly as he spoke. "I love you, Mahgen. Do you understand what I'm saying? Because I want there to be no mistaking what...
This was a few weeks ago," Annabeth said. "Percy told me a crazy story about meeting a boy our near Moriches Bay. Apparently this kid used hieroglyphs to cast spells. He helped Percy battle a crocodile monsters." "The Sob of Sobek!" Sadie blurted. "B...
I would see him, Edward.' It was no request; he knew it to be an ultimatum. He shook his head violently, not trusting his voice. Time passed. She was staring at him, saying nothing, and on her face was a look of stunned disbelief, of anguished accusa...
I think it's just as likely that someone could say that this place, right here, is heaven, hell and earth all at the same time. And we still wouldn't know what to do differently. Everyone just muddles through, trying not to make too many mistakes [.....
He is really cute,” I admitted, curious as to how many girls like me this guy had met. He shook his head in amusement as he worked on his painting. “Of course. I guess he’d have to be for you to risk so much, huh? Alchemists never fall for the ...
You know, Sage, Jesus didn't tell us to forgive everyone. He said turn the other cheek, but only if you the one who was hit. Even the Lord's Prayer says it loud and clear: Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Not ot...
Not one little fellow need fear that he will be forbidden to pluck his shining grape from the cluster of political Power, that fruit reputed to be so full of wealth and glory. Can’t every gang become a club? and every club an assembly? an assembly,...
There is an element of selfishness to this, I suppose. It feels pretty good to be able to so quickly help someone. That is, after all, one of the great emotional payoffs of medicine. That isn't to say that ECT is either a panacea or without flaws - b...
Perhaps, if you weren't so busy regarding my shortcomings, you'd find that I do possess redeeming qualities, discreet as they may be. I notice when the sky is blue. I smile down at children. I laugh at any innocent attempt at humor. I quietly...
I also think pronunciation of a foreign tongue could be better taught than by demanding from the pupil those internal acrobatic feats that are generally impossible and always useless. This is the sort of instruction one recieves: 'Press your tonsils ...
There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing ...
One can say that Javert is our conscience. The ever lurking presence of the law and our own condemnation. The tension between who we were and who we are and who we can be. Javert represents that inescapable, shameful past that forever haunts and pers...
