Opposite Pissec sits ghoulish Gottfried Baumauer, a tall, skinny workaholic with dark-ringed eye sockets and long, yellowing smoker’s fingers. He’s thirty-eight. He doesn’t say much. He drinks a lot of tea – likes it strong as tar. He lines u...
It was almost noon when the plane touched down at the Triad airport on the outskirts of Greensboro. There was a hire car waiting for me; I waved my notepad at the dashboard to transmit my profile, then waited as the seating and controls rearranged th...
Let's Look at Subjective Religious Experiences This Way: What if ten thousand people went up to a mountain top, saw something, and then they all disagreed with what they saw, even people who largely agreed with each other? Even with this best possibl...
I think we all, at one time or another, have been to this impossible place, the enchanted land that exists between our dreams and reality. Most of us are only held there for a moment, long enough to know it feels weird; we then choose one or the othe...
He frowned and tutted as he swabbed the vomit from the man's robes, and transferred his irritation to Pelagia's goat, which had entered the room and leapt up onto the table. 'Stupid brute' he shouted at it, and it looked at him impudently with its sl...
Right now, Youngster, you remind me of a mosquito buzzing over what she thinks is a nice, normal, juicy vein, angling to swoop down, stick in the old proboscis and suck up some blood to take back to the kids. Little does she know that she's hovering ...
I never realized what a big deal that was. How amazing it is to find someone who wants to hear about all the things that go on in your head. You just think that things will stay the way they are. You never look up, in a moment that feels like every o...
... mother seemed happy because the school yard where Rafik would spend his recesses was surrounded by a high stone wall. She'd recently started talking about 'safety' in a way that made Liyana jumpy. Liyana never thought about safety unless someone ...
Omer took a deep breath and stood up. 'It's a bad history without a doubt, he said. Nothing to be proud of.' He closed his eyes, turning his face to the side, right into the sun. 'So what are we going to do about it?' Then he opened his eyes, made a ...
What matters in the end in literature, what is always there, is the truly good. And -- though played out forms can throw up miraculous sports like The Importance of Being Earnest or Decline and Fall-- what is good is always what is new, in both form ...
I didn't give up, I walked away I had enough of accepting actions that were less than I deserved. So... I made a concious choice To honour myself, Before complementing another & If that's what; has made you undeniably mad, Than I know, the history of...
The hardest lesson to learn, is one where someone takes away your freedom; with out your consent... You grow, you ache, the pain never eases you just become strong, And one day you will wake up & all of a sudden all the darkness that surrounded you n...
I was a very quiet, shy child. I grew up in a small town, Louisville, Kentucky, and there weren't too many Hawaiian-Filipino girls, so I stuck out like a sore thumb. I didn't look like everyone else and didn't feel I belonged... But these things only...
If I was lonely, if I was afraid of being alone, then why abandon myself? Why run to someone else looking to give myself the thing that only I could give? I wanted to escape myself because I felt empty, and the emptiness frightened me. But obviously,...
don't expect too much from me, cos i might not meet up to your expectations, don't underestimate me, cos i just might do the unexpected, don't expect the truth from me always cos am human, and don't even try to judge me, cos you have not gone trough ...
The roller coaster is my life; Life is a fast, dizzying game. Life is a parachute jump; it's taking chances; falling over and getting up again. It's mountaineering; it's wanting to get to the very top of yourself and to feel angry and dissatisfied wh...
If a man we don't know phones us up one day and talks a little, makes no suggestions, says nothing special, but nevertheless pays us the kind of attention we rarely receive, we're quite capable of going to bed with him that night, feeling relatively ...
Sometimes when I visit schools, kids will interview me for the school newspaper. They ask me questions and my answers tend to go on and on, and they try to write down everything I'm saying as quickly as they can. And one day, a kid holds up her hand ...
In retrospect, I think those people dressed in costumes walking up Montparnasse must have seen someting before anybody else did. When they looked at me and said, "This guy comes with us," I think it wasn't just an accident, it was as clear a sign as ...
Some directors don't say much. Michael Mann, for example. I remember on 'The Insider' he never had much to say. He would do a scene, just kind of nod, and then set it up to do it again. And you might do a scene 10 or 12 times or more, the same little...
Hmm... my bedroom's really messy. It's probably the messiest bedroom you could ever think of. Like, you think it's messy, but when you go there, you can't see one bit of floor anywhere. Clothes, makeup... I'm getting sent loads of clothes and stuff, ...