But-when you really think about it-that emotional support only applies to the experience of living in public. We don't have ways to quantify ideas like "amazing" or "successful" or "lovable" without the feedback of an audience. Nobody sits by himself...
I also need to prepare myself for the inevitability of utter boredom: Very often, single people don't do shit. They do nothing, all night long. They sit in a recliner and watch TV. I've probably watched more television than anyone you've ever met, an...
The darkness behind my closed eyelids was like the cloud-covered sky, but the gray was somewhat deeper. Every few minutes, someone would come and paint over the gray with a different-textured gray - one with a touch of gold or green or red. I was imp...
There is a muse, but he’s not going to come fluttering down into your writing room and scatter creative fairy-dust all over your typewriter or computer station. He lives in the ground. He’s a basement guy. You have to descend to his level, and on...
Why wasn't I already kissing this woman? Why wasn't I naked, eating violets, and playing music underneath the open sky? Looking around the room again, everything seemed terribly ridiculous. These people sitting on their benches wearing layers on laye...
Reading, therefore, is a co-production between writer and reader. The simplicity of this tool is astounding. So little, yet out of it whole worlds, eras, characters, continents, people never encountered before, people you wouldn’t care to sit next ...
Before Elfrida Phipps left London for good and moved to the country, she made a trip to Battersea Dogs' Home, and returned with a canine companion. It took a good, and heart-rending, half hour of searching, but as soon as she saw him, sitting very cl...
Here are the Top Ten things that your parents say to you: -Is that all you're going to do all day, sit in front of the computer? -When I was your age I had two jobs. -Why don't you wear some clothes that fir for a change? -Turn it down. I can hear it...
there’s nothing to discuss there’s nothing to remember there’s nothing to forget it’s sad and it’s not sad seems the most sensible thing a person can do is sit with drink in hand as the walls wave their goodbye smiles one comes through it a...
The gate is perfectly simple," Temeraire said. "There is only a bar across the fence, which one can lift very easily, and then it swings open; Nitidus could do it best, for his forehands are the smallest. Though it is difficult to keep the animals in...
I always had the uncomfortable feeling that if I wasn't sitting in front of a computer typing, I was wasting my time--but I pushed myself to take a wider view of what was "productive." Time spend with my family and friends was never wasted.
Baumauer sits at home in silence in the evenings planning how to impress his rigidly strict father who’s in his late seventies, but who still enforces the same dynamic between himself and his three, guilt-ridden sons as he did when they were childr...
I paid for two seats at the back of the car to give my thighs breathing space. The gangly man sitting next to me used the extra space to spread his legs as widely as possible, leaving me squeezed once again against the window. I was livid. Months of ...
Either I protect my friends and lie low until the fight for Radiasure is over, or I put everyone in harm's way and make sure that horrible drug never gets made again. Maybe if I was only putting myself at risk, I could be okay with it. But I can't ma...
One night I dreamed of an angel: I walked into a huge, empty bar and saw him sitting in a corner with his elbows on the table and a cup of milky coffee in front of him. She’s the love of your life, he said, looking up at me, and the force of his ga...
It's odd to imagine, of course: you pass a car on a lonely rural highway; you sit beside a man in a diner and share views with him; you wait behind a customer checking into a motel, a friendly man with a winning smile and twinkling hazel eyes, who's ...
I have never felt like I was creating anything. For me, writing is like walking through a desert and all at once, poking up through the hardpan, I see the top of a chimney. I know there's a house under there, and I'm pretty sure that I can dig it up ...
Others may sit around and wait for magic to happen… I like to get up early and work towards my goals and dreams. Every morning I plant the seeds of what the haters call ‘luck.’ Now, I love magic as much as the next guy, but I realized a long ti...
It’s an open debate how much education can boost innate aptitude or IQ, but the trait of “conscientiousness” does consistently predict educational and job success and also subjective happiness. Yet as access to information increases, conscienti...
I sit on the bed. I remember a golden bracelet, thin gold, an apple with a bite taken out of it for the clasp, and the words "I Love You," and I take it out from the box of treasures under the bed. I remember Mama said, "I mean it. Though we never sa...
As I was walking to my car, a crow that was sitting on a wall suddenly scooped down and did number two on my head. Luckily I was holding a newspaper on my head at that time because sun was very strong and I didn’t want to become tanned. So thanks g...
