And she began the oft-told tale of a lady of imperial descent who could find no husband in the narrow circle where her pride permitted her to mate, and had lived on unwed, her age now thirty, and would die unwed, for no one would have her now.
The most wonderful type of love, she had learned, was the kind built with care and over time, through forgiveness and understanding, compromise and compassion, trust and acceptance. It was hidden in the minutiae of every day life; it was in the trade...
What do angels look like? I saw one today wering gaudy jewelry, spoke with a thick Spanish accent, quoted 'Chakespeare.' She said, 'All the world's a stage and sometimes you just gotta roll with los punches.
Love's night and a lamp Judged our vows: That she would love me ever And I should never leave her. Love's night and you, lamp, Witnessed the pact. Today the vow runs: "Oaths such as these, waterwords." Tonight, lamp, Witness her lying - In other arms...
All remember about my mother," Nibs told them, "is that she often said to my father, 'Oh, how I wish I had a cheque-book of my own!' I don't know what a cheque-book is, but I should just love to give my mother one.
Isolde took a swig. "It doesn't matter if you believe it or not. Your government just gave you two months to get knocked up." She held up the bottle, her face dull and red. "Cheers." "You better get your fill of the booze now, then," said Xochi. "You...
...then inn a conversational tone said, "I slapped my Aunt Martha. When my fiancé died. She told me God needed him in heaven, and I hauled off and slapped her, a sixty year old woman....People say unbelievable things to you. They deserve slapping.
I wish everyone would stop crying, Tom. Uncle Joe would be so angry about it." But she's crying herself now. "He'd be so angry at us, Tom, for crying so much when all he did was laugh.
If the pirate with a scarf had been more poetically minded he’d have thought that her eyes were like a thousand emeralds, glittering in a far-off pirate treasure chest. But he wasn’t, so he just thought that she had really really green eyes, a bi...
He knew that he’d known her for less than a week, but now that she was gone he was continually probing his feelings for her, the way he might probe a sore tooth with his tongue, engaging her in imaginary conversations, imagining her saying such del...
You’re practically begging for it, aren’t you?” he murmured. “No.” His chuckle rasped over her senses. “I like begging, Reagan.” “I’m not going to beg.” He was silent for a moment, his fingers still playing, and she wondered if sh...
I jerk around and see Sister Dora, a portly woman who's the head cook in the kitchen, staring daggers at me. This is nothing new. She stares daggers at everyone who walks through the lunch line holding a tray, as though our needing sustenance is a pe...
It's easy to like someone from a distance. But when she stopped being this amazing attainable thing or whatever, and started being, like, just a regular girl with a weird relationship with food and frequent crankiness who's kinda bossy, then I had to...
Comely was the town by the curving river that they dismantled in a year's time. Beautiful was Colleton in her last spring as she flung azaleas like a girl throwing rice at a desperate wedding. In dazzling profusion, Colleton ripened in a gauze of swe...
I just think it's bad when a boy looks at a girl and thinks that the way he sees her is better than she actually is. And I think it's bad when the most honest way a boy can look at a girl is through a camera.
We're almost there, Oliver said. Once again Petunia was so startled that she tripped and would have fallen is Oliver hadn't caught her around the waist and pulled her upright. "You must have been far away," he said laughing.
I will protect you," she promised the Bosendorfer inside. "I won't let you down." Sophie gave her a quizzical look. "Bastards better not hurt my piano," Miranda replied. "That's what you're worried about right now? What about your boyfriend?
Gertrude’s remedy for her mood swings was to print up hundreds of black-bordered calling cards embossed with the single word “Woe,” which she handed out gaily declaring, “Woe is me.
Madame d'Aulnoy is the true mother of the modern fairy tale. She invented the modern Court of Fairyland, with its manners, its fairies, its queens, its amorous, its cruel, its good, its evil, its odious, its friendly fées.
A man has to have something he can put faith in. Can't you see that? What I want is someone that will love me; she would have me and I her. Otherwise a man may just go hang himself
... The freshly devoured peppermint she loved lofted from her breath and up to his nose with her loud bellow of Father in his ear, and Caxton was sure that he could smell that scent now out in the crisp night air. "You demon!" he screamed with all hi...
