I amazed myself, above all, with how well I was able to manage. Michel got to school on time, his teeth brushed and his clothes clean. More or less clean: I was less critical of a few spots on his trousers than Claire would have been, but then I was ...
Here’s another example of the difference in our worldviews. A family in my sister’s neighborhood was recently stricken with a double tragedy, when both the young mother and her three-year-old son were diagnosed with cancer. When Catherine told me...
It's lonely to say goodbye. Very lonely. Please. Cry with me. Maybe there's nothing we can do about this. But at least, for now...cry with me. Like your entire body...is screaming at the sky. Like it's raging against the world. I lost something. And ...
I want to live my life, carrying my memories with me. Even if those memories are painful, even if those memories do nothing but hurt me, even if I wish I could forget those memories… As long as I keep carrying them with me, and don’t run away fro...
Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. man had no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he need...
I didn't know his age or how he liked his tea, I was wearing a terrible coat and I was drunk as a stoat - but this moment felt like it. The one I'd been waiting patiently for since I was a little girl. I'd worked so hard, for so long, at being ok wit...
Here's what I think. We all want someone to build a fort with. We want somebody to swap crayons with and play hide-and-seek with and live out imaginary stories with. We start out getting that from our family. Then we get it from our friends. And then...
Being the bearer of bad news is a terrible thing; sometimes you don't know if you'll have the words, the delicacy,the strength. You think of the person on the other side: how you're about to bring their world crashing down with a single phone call an...
Lovers do things together! They rent videos, they ride Ferris wheels, they go out for pizza, they play Scrabble. They . . . they talk!' 'Talk?' He lifted his head and frowned, his eyes puzzled. 'We talk all the time, Raine. I've never had such talkat...
Tyler rolls out of bed, sniffs the armpits of yesterday's T-shirt, tosses it aside, gets another out of the drawer. His dad sometimes asks him why he sets his alarm so early -- it's summer vacation, after all -- and Tyler can't seem to make him under...
God,” she butted her head into his chest, “I'm so angry with myself.” “What? Why?” “Because … this is my mess I dragged you into, and you don't deserve any of it, and I feel like I'm ruining you with every single thing I say, and…” ...
One quick glance around the room and I realise that I have somehow stumbled into a wannabe serial killer convention. Every single person in the room looks as if they are concealing a weapon of some sort. My heart thuds rapidly in my chest as I sneak ...
No it was my choice. It's what I wanted to do. And I knew they'd probably send me to Iraq. It's not like anybody lied to me." She groans. "Billy, all these mofos ever do is lie. You think if they halfway told the truth we'd even be in a fucking war? ...
The door buzzer sounded again. The two boys exchanged a single look before both bolting down the narrow hallway to the door. Jordan got there first. He grabbed for the coatrack that stood by the door, ripped the coats off it, and flung the door wide,...
A man cannot realize that above such shattered bodies there are still human faces in which life goes its daily round. And this is only one hospital, a single station; there are hundreds of thousands in Germany, hundreds of thousands in France, hundre...
He remembered Alejandra and the sadness he'd first seen in the slope of her shoulders which he'd presumed to understand and of which he knew nothing and he felt a loneliness he'd not known since he was a child and he felt wholly alien to the world al...
In literature, too, we admire prose in which a small and astutely arranged set of words has been constructed to carry a large consignment of ideas. 'We all have strength enough to bear the misfortunes of others,' writes La Rochefoucauld in an aphoris...
There is nothing left to seek for in this world when it can be exchanged for another one. No thought of gain or loss, winning or losing, success or failure ever had any meaning. Fantasy is not real and dreaming is not Being One. You are ready to Awak...
The instant the old folks had entered their codes and the Harmony program had begun to sing, suicide disappeared from human society. Nearly all battles ceased. The individual was no longer a unit. The entire social system was the unit. By losing its ...
She dumped me for the worst reason of all. For absolutely no reason at all...I mean, if she fell in love with someone else, or I did something wrong, or I let her down in some unforgivable way...That, I'd understand, right? But instead, she said...it...
The children were overwhelmingly morbid. Not a single adult asked me where butterflies go when they die, but this question was more popular than pixie sticks with the under-four-foot set. I cursed parents for not preparing their children. When I was ...
