The sky was thick with TV. If you wore special glasses you could see them spinning through the sky among the bats and homing birds—blondes, wars, famines, football, food shows, coups d'état, hairstyles stiff with hair spray. Designer pectorals. Gl...
The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someo...
First, I’d like to point out that I didn’t use ‘one of mine.’ You refused to let me pay for my ice cream cone with a good ol’ fashioned credit card, and you forced your pretend money on me. Secondly, I can’t take any currency seriously th...
I don't believe in writers' block. Do doctors have 'doctors block?' Do plumbers have 'plumbers' block?" No. We all have days when we don't feel like working, but why do writers turn that into something so damn special by giving it a faintly romantic ...
…the Genesis story is just one that happened to have been adopted by one particular tribe of Middle Eastern herders. It has no more special status than the belief of a particular West African tribe that the world was created from the excrement of a...
I held out my book. It was precious to me, as were all the things I'd written; even where I despised their inadequacy there was not one I would disown. Each tore its way from my entrails. Each had shortened my life, killed me with its own special lit...
Ebola haunted Zaire because of corruption and political repression. The virus had no secret powers, nor was it unusually contagious. For centuries Ebola had lurked in the jungles of central Africa. Its emergence into human populations required the sp...
Listen, everyone, you all have your own circumstances. Some of you come from rich families,and some poor. But your value isn't determined by such things--by things beyond your control. Each one of you must discover your own worth through your own eff...
It [being very rich] used to worry me, and I thought it wrong to have so many beautiful things when others had nothing. Now I realize that it is possible for the rich to sin by coveting the privileges of the poor. The poor have always been the favour...
Living a life of faith is not superficial. You are not simply living in some hurt from the past, trying to be the top dog, or even tying to fulfill a parent inadequacy. No, you are on a unique journey, living each day anew, with freedom to be yoursel...
We are homeless enough in this world under the best of circumstances without going to any special effort to test our capacity to be more so.
God, or the 99 Gods, can’t give out miracles to everyone without contradictions. Give to one, take from another. Prayer is pathetic, if you give it any thought. Prayer is nothing but ‘I’m special, gimme what I want’ egotism run amok, ex...
The meat market itself was probably a greater influence on Spare than his first school. It offered a spectacle of thousands of animal carcasses, which arrived under the market by a specially built railway before being displayed and disposed of at gro...
Ask any guy if sex is important in a relationship and the one who says no is lying. I just haven't met that guy yet. When you meet him, let's get him in to the Smithsonian - he's that special and rare.
I'd grown up hearing stories about the special hazards that girls faced. I knew where the bodies were found: naked on beaches or cut into pieces, parts frozen in freezers or buried in cement. These stories were never kept from us girls. Instead they ...
Our moments are music, and sometimes – just sometimes – we can catch them and put them into some lasting form. If we didn’t have music, I don’t think we could ever be truly happy, and if we didn’t have special moments, we would never find m...
Some people like danger and adventure, some like to be free of civilization, and some like to live by their wits. It was those special people who headed west.
When we got back home, Gramps dropped me off and enveloped me in a hug. Normally, he was a handshaker, maybe a back-patter on really special occasions. His hug was strong and tight, and I knew it was his way of telling me that he'd had a wonderful ti...
He smiles. It’s a blinding, white-toothed smile. A push-me-over-the-edge-of-the-love-cliff smile. And before I can say a word in protest, he’s got my hand and is dragging me through the carnival. Note to self: Do not stare directly at his s...
The special skill of the politician consists in knowing what passions can be most easily aroused, and how to prevent them, when aroused, from being harmful to himself and his associates...Moreover, since politicians are divided into rival groups, the...
My best day ever. Got up. Had breakfast. Came to school. Bored, as usual. Wishing I wasn't there, like usual. Kids ignoring me, suits me fine. Sitting with the other retards—we’re so special. Wasting my time. Yesterday was the same, and it's gone...
