There are always things I find difficult - being in crowds, remembering faces. I do like routines. I always travel with someone. My life in Avignon is a very quiet one. I have an apartment that looks over the whole city. I can drop into town, but a l...
I pretty much always knew I wanted to be a writer. I was writing goofy stories when I was 7 or 8. That was what I call 'wishful-thinking writing.' I grew up in the city and always wanted a horse, but there was no way I was getting a horse. So I wrote...
Summertime, oh, summertime, pattern of life indelible, the fade-proof lake, the woods unshatterable, the pasture with the sweetfern and the juniper forever and ever . . . the cottages with their innocent and tranquil design, their tiny docks with the...
I am a commuter, not between the city and the village, although I do this frequently; not between the inane idealism of the classroom and the stifling reality beyond it, which I must do for survival and self-respect. I am a commuter between what I am...
Below the bows of the Arrawa a child’s coffin moved onto the night stream. Its paper flowers were shaken loose by the wash of a landing craft carrying sailors from the American cruiser. The flowers formed a wavering garland around the coffin as it ...
In Toronto, I grew up taking a subway, I grew up taking a bus. I spent my formative adult years in New York City, walking the streets, taking the subway. You're connected to the larger whole. L.A. is so spread out, and you're so incubated inside thos...
We are all proprietary toward cities we love. 'Ah, you should have seen her when I loved her!' we say, reciting glories since faded or defiled, trusting her to no one else; that others should know and love her in her present fallen state (for she mus...
I don't know who made the first Aquaman joke. I'm sure it was comics readers; maybe we all did. But it's the idea that the perpetuated story of Aquaman is that he only has powers in water, and he talks to fish. I think it's the idea of him in the mid...
Anon from the castle walls The crescent banner falls, And the crowd beholds instead, Like a portent in the sky, Iskander's banner fly, The Black Eagle with double head; And a shout ascends on high, For men's souls are tired of the Turks, And their wi...
Books. They are lined up on shelves or stacked on a table. There they are wrapped up in there jackets, lines of neat print on nicely bound pages. They look like such orderly, static things. Then you, the reader come along. You open the book jacket, a...
- ...before I was going to college, my secret plan was to one day not tell anybody and just get on some bus to some random city and just move there and become this totally different person. - Then what? - ...and not come back until I had totally beco...
Charles: As soon as we get settled, we'll build you a dark room in the basement, okay? Lydia: My whole life is a dark room. One big dark room. Delia: So you were miserable in New York City, and now you're going to be miserable out here in the sticks....
[first lines] Graham: It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash...
[Skank puts a gun to Tin Tin's head] Skank: Fuck you, Tin Tin! [Tin Tin puts a knife to Skank's throat] Tin Tin: Hey, that shit ain't even loaded, man. [Funboy points a gun at Tin Tin] Funboy: This one is. [T-Bird points a gun at all three of them] T...
Mr. Hand: But I wanted to know what it was like... how you feel. John Murdoch: You know how I was supposed to feel. That person isn't me... never was. You wanted to know what it was about us that made us human. Well, you're not going to find it... [M...
[Schraber mixes memories] Dr. Schreber: These do bring back memories. This one is still warm. What is it? The recollections of a great lover? A catalog of conquests? We will soon find out. You wouldn't appreciate that, would you, Mr. Whatever-your-na...
Dr. Schreber: It appears that John has suffered a psychotic break. Complete memory loss. He may be delusional. Even violent. Emma, if he were to contact you, and I suspect he will, you must call me immediately. Do you understand? It is imperative tha...
Bruce Wayne: You know that day that you once told me about, when Gotham would no longer need Batman? It's coming. Rachel Dawes: Bruce. You can't ask me to wait for that. Bruce Wayne: It's happening now. Harvey is that hero. He locked up half of the c...
John McClane: [after realizing that all of the city's cops are busy searching schools for Simon's bomb] What is it that Wall Street doesn't have? Zeus: What, is this shit catching? You're talking in riddles! John McClane: No, man, stay with me, what ...
Gamora: I'm a warrior, an assassin. I don't dance. Peter Quill: Really? Well, on my planet, we have a legend about people like you. It's called Footloose. And in it, a great hero, named Kevin Bacon, teaches an entire city full of people with sticks u...
Vincent Mancini: You like to gamble? Why don't we go to Atlantic City? My town. I'll show you how to gamble. Grace Hamilton: Yeah, but I like to win. How will I know what numbers to pick? Vincent Mancini: Do I look okay like a guy who's gonna lose?