The blade was sharp enough that she didn't feel the initial prick, but it didn't matter. The earth beside her opened up and the knife slid from her attacker's suddenly nerveless hand, thudding to the ground about the same time she did. His grip on he...
The best protection against propaganda of any sort is the recognition of it for what it is. Only hidden and undetected oratory is really insidious. What reaches the heart without going through the mind is likely to bounce back and put the mind out of...
No! Please no," she feels the cool metal of the handcuffs again. "Please, I'm Madison, I'm Madison!" Her arms lock into place above her head. She jerks her body, pain snapping at her muscles. "You can stay like this for the day." He rises from the be...
Play Quidditch at all?” “No,” Harry said again, wondering what on earth Quidditch could be. “ do — Father says it’s a crime if I’m not picked to play for my House, and I must say, I agree. Know what House you’ll be in yet?” “No,�...
To crave and to have are as like as a thing and its shadow. For when does a berry break upon the tongue as sweetly as when one longs to taste it, and when is the taste refracted into so many hues and savors of ripeness and earth, and when do our sens...
It is...difficult to describe someone, since memories are by their nature fragmented, isolated, and arbitrary as glimpses one has at night through lighted windows. [E]very memory is turned over and over again, every word, however chance, written in t...
And yet, for a writer of fiction, part of the heart remains that of a stranger, for what we are trying to do is to understand those others who are our fictional characters, somehow to gain entrance to their minds and feelings, to respect them for the...
I had the feeling that all over America such stupid arguments were taking place on street corners and in bars and restaurants. All over America, people were pulling credentials out of their pockets and sticking them under someone else's nose to prove...
There is a wholeness about a woman, of shape, and sound, and colour, and taste, and smell, a quietness that is her, that you will want to hold tightly to you, all, every little bit, without words, in peace, for jealousy for the things that escape the...
I had a dream about you. You tried to stretch the truth like a midget on the rack, and I was looking to buy clothes off the discount rack. The truth had left me naked, exposed, and feeling cheap, while you were wearing a bright lie as casually as a n...
Now, paper and pencils," said Miss Marcy, clapping her hands. Writing paper is scarce in this house, and I had no intention of tearing sheets out of this exercise book, which is a superb sixpenny one the Vicar gave me. In the end, Miss Marcy took the...
There are some people in your life who bring back old memories. And there are others - your first kiss, your first love, your first sex - who, the moment you see them, bring a spark...and something far more potent. They bring back your old life and w...
Back on the Hauser regime, I start the day with his notorious "pep breakfast" -- two raw eggs beaten in orange juice. Hauser describes it as a "creamy drink fit for a King's table." I do not feel the same way. This is so much worse than the raw eggs ...
I'm not big on regret - until time travel actually exists, it seems like a waste of making yourself feel bad
I want to mail my mailman something. He always brings me mail, yet I never give him any mail. Maybe he will appreciate the thought, or maybe he will feel I am making more work for him.
I recalled the afternoon when the two of us stood beating erasers, and Camille confided that she'd done penance for stories - stories that I'll never know if she wrote or only imagined writing. She'd wanted me to tell her a secret from my dreams, a s...
Please," he says. "I'm begging you to stop." I still. "I can't stomach your pain," he says. "I can feel it so strongly and it's making me crazy- please," he says to me. "Don't be sad. Or hurt. Or guilty. You've done nothing wrong." "I'm sorry-" "Don'...
Already, I know that all of this will stay with me forever. It'll haunt me, but I also fear it will make me feel grateful. I say because at times I really don't want this to be a fond memory until it's over. I also fear that nothing really ends at th...
Don't you feel as though you could love everything starting tomorrow, and everything could love you, if only you took an action to set into motion the coming of our new tomorrow and its tomorrow and that one's tomorrow? Shotgun loaded hand on the pum...
Can you hear me? Sighing. You were right. My requiem is well prepared. Still to be written is the poem that is never complete, an endless rubbing on the ink block, an endless dipping of the pen, an endless swoop over the white paper, the poem of my l...
You will remember this when all else fades, this moment, here, together, by this well. There will be certain days, and certain nights, you’ll feel my presence near you, hear my voice. You’ll think you have imagined it and yet, inside you, you wil...
