Perhaps talk of counters turned the boy’s thoughts to his father’s glove shop. His father would have accounted for all his transactions using the tokens. They were hard and round and very thin, made of copper or brass. There were counters for one...
But I do like Scotland. I like the miserable weather. I like the miserable people, the fatalism, the negativity, the violence that's always just below the surface. And I like the way you deal with religion. One century you're up to your lugs in it, t...
But what he said was true enough: I had recently destroyed a perfectly good set of wire braces by straightening them to pick a lock. Father had grumbled, of course, but had made another appointment to have me netted and dragged back up to London, to ...
Boredom forces you to ring people you haven’t seen for eighteen years and halfway through the conversation you remember why you left it so long. Boredom means you start to read not only mail-order catalogues but also the advertising inserts that fa...
Every twenty minutes on the Appalachian Trail, Katz and I walked farther than the average American walks in a week. For 93 percent of all trips outside the home, for whatever distance or whatever purpose, Americans now get in a car. On average, the t...
The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States. Each suburban wife str...
No milk," I said. "No milk," said my sister. I watched my dad think about this. He looked like he was going to suggest that we have something for breakfast that you do not need milk for, like sausages, but then he looked like he remembered that, with...
Actually, no. I won't ever go digital. I work with thirty-five or large format. I like the hand-jobs, you know. And I still do most of my own printing. I've developed such a profound distaste for touch-up and modern artifice—comes from snapping too...
There are more nobles out now that the sun is setting. They walk hand in hand, arm in arm to cafes, bread shops, clothing stores, and flower booths. It's a lovely sight to me. A lovely sight to anyone who previosly knew human kind to burn flower boot...
As we drove uptown, I spotted a Kmart on a corner,with its familiar red sign.I cleared my throat."Wait. Can we stop for a minute?" "What for?" "Just - I need a few things." He looked irritated, but pulled into a metered space. "We don't really have t...
Every gay person must come out. As difficult as it is, you must tell your immediate family. You must tell your relatives. You must tell your friends if indeed they are your friends. You must tell the people you work with. You must tell the people in ...
Clark: Oh, I was just smelling - smiling. I was just blouse - browsing. I, uh, heh heh. Well, I guess it just wouldn't... Oh hee hee, it wouldn't be the Christmas shopping season if the stores were any less hooter than they - HOTTER than they are. Wh...
Mathilda: Do you "clean" anyone? Léon: No women, no kids, that's the rules. Mathilda: How much would it cost to hire someone to get those dirtbags who killed my brother? Léon: Five grand a head. Mathilda: Wow. How about this: I work for you; in exc...
Ed Crane: I was the principal barber now. I hired a new man for the second chair. I'd hired the guy who did the least gabbing when he came in for an interview, but I guess the new man had only kept quiet because he was nervous. Once he had the job he...
Daphne: [after meeting the all-girl band they'll be traveling with] How about that talent, huh? It's like falling into a tub of butter. Joe: Watch it, Daphne! Daphne: When I was a kid, Joe, I used to have a dream. I was locked up overnight in a pastr...
Mrs. Lovett: So what are we gonna do about the boy? Sweeney Todd: Send him up! Mrs. Lovett: No, Mr. T. Surely one's enough for today. Besides, I was thinking of hiring the lad to help me run the shop. Your poor knees aren't what they used to be. Swee...
Floyd's Daughter: Hello? Dr. Floyd: Hello! Floyd's Daughter: Hello. Dr. Floyd: How're you doing, squirt? Floyd's Daughter: All right. Dr. Floyd: What are you doing? Floyd's Daughter: Playing. Dr. Floyd: Where's mommy? Floyd's Daughter: Gone to shoppi...
In India we're fighting to retain a wilderness that we have. Whereas in the west, it's gone. Every person that's walking down the street is a walking bar code. You can tell where their clothes are from, how much they cost, which designer made which s...
Sense never fails to give them that have it, Words enough to make them understood. It too often happens in some conversations, as in Apothecary Shops, that those Pots that are Empty, or have Things of small Value in them, are as gaudily Dress'd as th...
As I sit here on a snowy morning watching the flakes gently fall outside my window, I look at the 300-year-old building across the street and the beautifully carved angels on its facade. There was a time people would create, just to give something be...
You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, l...
