There is a larger lesson here, because the book encompasses not just the lives of prisoners in a Soviet prison camp, but every one of us. Shukhov squeezes everything he can out of a mouthful of soup or a bite of bread…So frozen that he can’t even...
It’s sarcasm, Josh.” “Sarcasm?” “It’s from the Greek, sarkasmos. To bite the lips. It means that you aren’t really saying what you mean, but people will get your point. I invented it, Bartholomew named it.” “Well, if the village idi...
Everything happens at night. The world changes, the shadows grow, there's secrecy and privacy in dark places. First kiss at night, by the monkey bars and the old swings that the children and their parents have vacated; second, longer kiss, by the bik...
E ... intelligent design people! They're just buck-toothed, Bible-pushing nincompoops with community-college degrees who're trying to sell a gussied-up creationism to a cretinous public! No need to address their concerns or respond to their arguments...
It's like Dungeons and Dragons, but ." Jace was looking at Simon as if he were some bizarre species of insect. "It's like what?" "It's a game," Clary explained. She felt vaguely embarrassed. "People pretend to be wizards and elves, and they kill mons...
It's intriguing to observe so many of the outrageous prophecies, made with such biting satire years ago in the first edition, come into being through the craft of so many self-entitled egomaniacs running a global 'corpornation' for personal interest ...
If I could take a bite of the whole world And feel it on my palate I’d be more happy for a minute or so... But I don’t always want to be happy. Sometimes you have to be Unhappy to be natural... Not every day is sunny. When there’s been no rain ...
Miss Gulch: [stopping bicycle and getting off] Gale? Uncle Henry Gale: Well, howdy, Miss Gulch. Miss Gulch: [comes into the Gales' yard] I want to see you and your wife right away about Dorothy! Uncle Henry Gale: Dorothy? Well, what has Dorothy done?...
Derek Vinyard: Nigger, you just fucked with the wrong bull! You should've learned your lesson on the fuckin' basketball court! But you fuckin' monkey's never get the message. My father gave me that truck motherfucker! You ever shoot at fireman? You c...
Toward nightfall, Khrenov’s temperature had risen. The thermometer was warm, alive—the column of mercury climbed high on the little red ladder. For a long time he muttered unintelligibly, kept biting his lips and gently shaking his head. Then he ...
When something horrible happens, your brain doesn't process the memories right. It stores everything-- sounds, pain, smells, feelings-- all mixed up. It doesn't matter if you believed it or it made sense; it gets stored.
Trouble was, everyone always made talking out a problem sound like it was so simple and solved everything, but actually doing it, and securing the desired outcome without screwing up, seemed about as easy as rowing upriver with a teaspoon.
I knew I was a little different from most demons but nothing says freak of nature like a one-eyed gypsy saying I had a rainbow glow. It just didn't sound complimentary.
This isn't sex." I blinked. "Oh. Then what is it?" "An emergency!" I started to argue and then thought twice about it. Considering what Mircea would do to Pritkin if he ever found out about this...Yeah. Emergency sounded good.
Memory warps time, as it does the sights and sounds and smells of reality; for what shapes it is emotion, which can twist what seems clear, just as the surface of a pond seems to bend the stick thrust into the water.
Sometimes, when people speak, I cease listening to their words and zoom in instead on the cadence, and it can seem lovely, and at other times absurd, all this verbiage, these seemingly random consonants clattering on the string that is sound.
Even when not in the act of writing Muscatine a letter, I was often composing one in my mind, situating the words just so, plunking one here, then one there, gauging how to sound worthy of his regard.
On the fifth day, which was a Sunday, it rained very hard. I like it when it rains hard. It sounds like white noise everywhere, which is like silence but not empty.
The two women switched to their native tongue. Kate tuned them out. She understood only half of what they were saying. As with most Americans, Dutch sounded to her more like a disease of the throat than an actual language
I hate zombies. I know that sound prejudiced. I'm sure some zombies are really nice to kittens and love their parents. But it's been my experience that most are not the kind of people you want sending you friend requests.
He looked down at my cup and his little, bony fingers started crawling towards it. I snatched it in front of him, pulling it closer to me. “Never. Touch. My. Coffee.”, my voice sounded colder than meant.
