People say I talk slowly. I talk in a way sometimes called laconic. The phone rings, I answer, and people ask if they’ve woken me up. I lose my way in the middle of sentences, leaving people hanging for minutes. I have no control over it. I’ll be...
For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence -- on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instea...
Nicholas Angel: Yes, sir. Why is everyone eating chocolate cake? Inspector Frank Butterman: The Black Forest gateau is on Danny, as punishment for his little indiscretion. Nicholas Angel: His...? Sir, I don't think driving under the influence can be ...
Lowell Bergman: I fought for you and I still fight for you! Jeffrey Wigand: You fought for me? You manipulated me! Into where I am now - staring at the Brown & Williamson building, it's all dark except for the tenth floor. That's the legal department...
Japanese Businessman: [in Japanese; subtitled] Do you like Ferraris? Go Go Yubari: [in Japanese] Ferraris... Italian trash. [Japanese businessman giggles] Go Go Yubari: Do you want to screw me? [Japanese businessman giggles again] Go Go Yubari: Don't...
Andrina: Ariel, dear, time to come out. You've been in there all morning. [Ariel emerges, singing to herself] Atina: What is with her lately? [Ariel looks at herslf in the mirror, then picks a flower next to it and swims away, but stops short when sh...
Nemo Nobody aged 118: Urgh, you're still here? Did I fall asleep? Sometimes I don't sleep so I think... I think about how it was... and all I have left. What do you see when you look at me? A grumpy old man who never answers questions? Who mixes ever...
General "Buck" Turgidson: Mr. President, if I may speak freely, the Russkie talks big, but frankly, we think he's short of know how. I mean, you just can't expect a bunch of ignorant peons to understand a machine like some of our boys. And that's not...
Colonel Saito: Attention, English prisoners! Notice I do not say "English soldiers". From the moment you surrendered, you ceased to be soldiers. You will finish the bridge by the twelfth day of May. You will work under the direction of a Japanese eng...
If you crave for Knowledge, the banquet of Knowledge grows and groans on the board until the finer appetite sickens. If, still putting all your trust in Knowledge, you try to dodge the difficulty by specialising, you produce a brain bulging out inord...
Then what is good? The obsessive interest in human affairs, plus a certain amount of compassion and moral conviction, that first made the experience of living something that must be translated into pigment or music or bodily movement or poetry or pro...
And before you say this is all far-fetched, just think how far the human race has come in the past ten years. If someone had told your parents, for example, that they would be able to carry their entire music library in their pocket, would they have ...
If we're lucky, writer and reader alike, we'll finish the last line or two of a short story and then just sit for a minute, quietly. Ideally, we'll ponder what we've just written or read; maybe our hearts or intellects will have been moved off the pe...
When getting my nose in a book Cured most things short of school, It was worth ruining my eyes To know I could still keep cool, And deal out the old right hook To dirty dogs twice my size. Later, with inch-thick specs, Evil was just my lark: Me and m...
We are not consumers. For most of humanity’s existence, we were makers, not consumers: we made our clothes, shelter, and education, we hunted and gathered our food. We are not addicts. “I propose that most addictions come from our surrendering ou...
I’m not the one who kissed you in the bathroom. In case you’re thinking I forgot about that, or somehow missed it, or …” “Kind of hard to miss,” Ian agreed. “Your lips, mine. A distinct smacking sound. Yup, that was me kissing you. Stil...
Occasionally, I get a letter from someone who is in “contact” with extraterrestrials. I am invited to “ask them anything.” And so over the years I’ve prepared a little list of questions. The extraterrestrials are very advanced, remember. So...
Is that why you've been pushing me away? Because of how you [...] I waited for you my whole life. Yearned for you my whole life. After Tersa told me you were coming, I spent searching for you[....] I never gave a damn what you looked like--tall, shor...
Holding her gaze, he sheathed his short sword and pulled the gauntlet off his left hand with his teeth. He held out his bare hand to her. She glanced at the proffered hand before laying her palm in his. Hot strength gripped her tightly as he pulled h...
I wake up. Immediately I have to figure out who I am. It’s not just the body—opening my eyes and discovering whether the skin on my arm is light or dark, whether my hair is long or short, whether I’m fat or thin, boy or girl, scarred or smooth....
Captain Owen Hartford, at your service.” He tipped his hat. Oh, so it was going to be like this, was it? She searched her memory for a good name. “Patience Corntower. Of Thorny Hollow way.” His grin went wide. “We are well acquainted. You may...
