I could hardly get a boy to look at me. All right, they'd look, they'd even take me out, but no one asked for a second date. I was too nasty, a real wise guy, and all the boys could tell what my rotten disposition was. Deep down, I wanted a commitmen...
At the last minute, she bobbed left so that he stabbed the wall she'd hit, trapping the blade in the Sheetrock. As he went to try to get the thing free, she whirled around and nailed him in the gut with her backup blade, springing a hole in his lower...
She whirled when the monster was almost on top of her. I thought the thing in her hands was an umbrella until she cranked the pump and the shotgun blast blew the giant twenty feet backwards, right into Nico's sword. "Nice one," Paul said. "When did y...
He stared at me for several heavy seconds and then laughed—though there wasn't much humor in it. "You know what's great? You'reserious. Look at your face." He gestured, as though I actually could examine myself. "You really think it's that easy, th...
Roza, my self-control is ten times stronger than yours." I opened my eyes, shifting to look into his. I brushed his hair back and smiled, certain my heart would expand and expand until there was nothing left of me. "Oh yeah? That's not the impression...
Dad and I leave town in the early dark. It's the second Sunday of the holidays, and we pack up the old blue car with enough clothes for summer and hit the road. It's so early he's wiping hills of sand piled in the corners of his eyes. I wipe a few te...
On day one of the drive, I saw my first dome sky. The world was so flat that I could see the level horizon all around me and the sky looked like a dome. Skies like that will give you perspective when nothing else will. The second day, a tumbleweed bl...
But whether the risks to which liberty exposes us are moral or physical our right to liberty involves the right to run them. A man who is not free to risk his neck as an aviator or his soul as a heretic is not free at all; and the right to liberty be...
(The presence of evil) in his life provokes him into either overcoming it or yielding to it. If the first, it has led him to work for his own improvement; if the second it has led him to acknowledge his own weakness. Sooner or later, the unpleasant c...
The great truth of the Incarnation is that the Son of God became flesh and dwelt among us. In this foundational truth we may emphasize the nature of the Son of Man himself, or we may emphasize his taking on flesh and dwelling among us. The condemning...
I remember the second time I took Agatha out. I wanted to go to Dairy Queen, and she wanted to go to Burger King. In the end we settled for wieners and clams at Johnny Hermaphrodite’s.
The value of me is equal to 5097033198, but also 3051982. The first is my phone number, and the second is my birthday. I assign values to people. My fifth grade bus driver had a Cheeto factor of four.
My father warned me that you’re an interloper. He told me I should make you leave, since we’re no longer married and you’re not my concern,” he says. The thought gives me a chill. Yes, I’m sure Vaughn would love for his son to abandon me, s...
And if we don't keep moving, we won't make it to a computer in time to stop the submarine sale because we'll have to spend a second night in the jungle, surrounded by friggin' pit vipers. In the rain. And I am sick and tired of the rain. I want to ge...
And it's a disquieting thought that not even the past is done with, even that continues to change, as if in reality there is only one time, for everything, one time for every purpose under heaven. One single second, one single landscape, in which wha...
A flutter of bright green drew Deanna's focus out of the turbulent realm of her head and onto the flame-damaged storage shed. From the hold below the scorched eaves she saw the male paloma emerge and take flight. A few seconds later the drab brown fe...
War, Nobby. Huh! What is it good for?" he said. "Dunno, Sarge. Freeing slaves, maybe?" "Absol—well, okay." "Defending yourself against a totalitarian aggressor?" "All right, I'll grant you that, but—" "Saving civilization from a horde of—" "It ...
He’s sort of a homeless horse,” I said. “I’m leaving for the airport in two seconds, and I won’t be back for a couple days. You can put the horse in the garage, but I don’t want that horse in my apartment.” “Who would put a horse in a...
Niko popped a spare slice of bacon in his mouth, chewing it up contentedly. “I hate being a soul, being dead. You know what I hate most about it?” “No sex?” Sophie guessed. “That’s what I hate second most about it. No, what I hate most is...
Periclean Greeks employed the term , without any connotation of stupidity or subnormality, to mean simply 'a person indifferent to public affairs.' Obviously, there is something wanting in the apolitical personality. But we have also come to suspect ...
...stooping very low, He engraves with care His Name, indelible, upon our dust; And from the ashes of our self-despair, Kindles a flame of hope and humble trust. He seeks no second site on which to build, But on the old foundation, stone by stone, Ce...
