Oh, God, Francesca,Now there’s a good one.Why?Why? Why?” He gave each one a different tenor, as if he were testing out the word, asking it to different people. “Why?” he asked again, this time with increased volume as he turned around to face...
Relationships, like all human experiences, are transient; they change every day and are meant to be enjoyed in the present. When I hear people say you need to "work" at a relationship, what that often really means is just seeing through the day-to-da...
The orange turns to dull bronze light and continues to show what it has shown all day long, but now it seems to show it without enthusiasm. Across those dry hills, within those little houses in the distance are people who've been there all day long, ...
He reassures her, but he feels her soft laughter travel through their joined hands — how did that happen? — as they make their way downstairs. And he understands. He understands why people hold hands: he’d always thought it was about possessive...
Finally I find it, the book, but as I’m pulling it out of the stack I hear a noise coming from my toy room. It sounds like scratching or scraping maybe and my mind instantly goes to the possibility that maybe it’s a monster or a dragon or somethi...
We hear a great deal about the rudeness of the ris- ing generation. I am an oldster myself and might be expected to take the oldsters' side, but in fact I have been far more impressed by the bad manners of par- ents to children than by those of child...
Sooner or later it must come out, even if other men rediscover it. And then...Governments and powers will struggle to get hither, they will fight against one another and against these moon people. It will only spread warfare and multiply the occasion...
Stand here, he thought, and count the lighted windows of a city. You cannot do it. But behind each yellow rectangle that climbs, one over another, to the sky - under each bulb - down to there, see that spark over the river which is not a star? - ther...
Music is a complete evocation – like a smell. It can bring an entire memory and feeling back to you in a rush. Much more complete than even a photograph. You allow yourself a certain visual distance with photos – not music. It envelopes you – t...
Dale, a Plutonian Dreg Bug, the kind with seventeen eyes and a bad temper, got nailed in one of his eyes by a wild dart. Fight broke out when he punched Earl in the nose. Earl’s nose is very sensitive, hell it’s how he sees, sort of. Earl plopped...
I... There was a time when I stopped talking. Just like you. My reasons were a little bit different, but I think the feelings of being ashamed of myself and hating myself are the same. Here, it says to "like yourself." What does that mean? Good thing...
I spent the beginning of my focus on activism by doing what most everyone else was doing; blaming other people and institutions. Don’t like the war? Let’s blame the president, congress, or lobbyists. Don’t like ecological disregard? Let’s bla...
Stories don’t teach us to be good; it isn’t as simple as that. They show us what it feels like to be good, or to be bad. They show us people like ourselves doing right things and wrong things, acting bravely or acting meanly, being cruel or being...
OMG, I think I’ve become a feminist. I mean, I’ve always been in favor of women voting and being paid the same as men for doing the same job. But then, the other day on the train, I didn’t get up and give a woman my seat. I thought about it. Bu...
On Hayao Miyazaki I told Miyazaki I love the "gratuitous motion" in his films; instead of every movement being dictated by the story, sometimes people will just sit for a moment, or they will sigh, or look in a running stream, or do something extra, ...
You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to ...
Last reason for reading horror: it’s a rehearsal for death. It’s a way to get ready. People say there’s nothing sure but death and taxes. But that’s not really true. There’s really only death, you know. Death is the biggie. Two hundred year...
I believe in evil, but all my life I've gone back and forth about whether or not there's an outside evil, whether or not there's a force in the world that really wants to destroy us, from the inside out, individually and collectively. Or whether it a...
NO reader has ANY obligation to an author, whether it be to leave a review or to write a "constructive" one. I put out a product. You are consumers of that product. Since when does that mean you have to kiss my ass? Hey, I like Pop-Tarts and eat them...
The cult of friendship disturbs me. It's like our quality is supposed to be measured by the number of friends we have. For me, it's quite the inverse. When somebody says "I'm friends with everyone" I just assume they have the spine of your average je...
