I had written a book of short stories which was published under the title of "Uncle Tom's Children". When the review of that book began to appear, I realized that I had made an awful naive mistake. I found that I had written a book which even bankers...
Maybe such questions bothered me so much because they are being asked about me, all the time, within the echo chamber of my own fallen psyche and by unseen rebel angels all around. Are you really a son of the living God? Does your God really know you...
You are one of us, one of those who knows without knowing, and one who will live and die in dreams that blend with this world. No, I am no gypsy, just one who has read a good many books. It is only through reading those great jewels of wisdom that on...
Bradlee had been recruited with the idea that the New York Times need nod exercise absolute preeminence in American journalism. That vision had suffered a setback in 1971 when the Times published the Pentagon Papers. Though the Post was the second ne...
I moonlight as the greatest actor. I smile. I choose the comedy mask every time. I tell those who worry that I am fine, that I always will be. There is nothing to gain from these lies. I win no awards, yet I bow. On that stage I tell my life story wi...
I ain’t never had me a single round in a professional, boxin’ ring. I’m whatcha call a street fighter, a knuckle brawler. Knives, beer bottles, chairs, chains, rocks, sticks, tire irons, and even teeth. Ya name it. I’ve seen ‘em all. And I ...
Well," Mr. Cheeseman interjected. "Perhaps there's an easy solution to this. Maybe Captain Fabulous has an alter ego." "What's an alter ego?" asked Gerard. "It's a superhero's true but secret identity," said Chip. "You know, the way that Superman is ...
They say being in love and loving someone are two different things, right? I mean, you love your best friend, but you love your husband, right? Falling in love with someone is easy. It's loving when the newness has worn off, when life gets tough, whe...
It is through hearing stories about wicked stepmothers, lost children, good but misguided kings, wolves that suckle twin boys, youngest sons who receive no inheritance but must make their own way in the world, and eldest sons who waste their inherita...
I have always hesitated to give advice, for how can one advise another how to act unless one knows that other as well as one knows himself? Heaven knows. I know little enough of myself: I know nothing of others. We can only guess at the thoughts and ...
I was seventeen, halfway toward eighteen, and I had learned something nobody had ever taught me: Once you get to a certain age, especially if a driver’s license is involved, you can go a whole day—a whole week, even—without ever seeing your fam...
I see manuscripts and books that are spoiled for the literary reader because they are one long stream of top-of-the-head writing, a writer telling a story without concern for precision or freshness in the use of language. Some of this storytelling re...
We went back into the Mens Apartments where there were others raving of Ships that may fly and silvered Creatures upon the Moon: Their Stories seem to have neither Head nor Tayl to them, Sir Chris. told me, but there is a Grammar in them if I could b...
When you’ve had a psychotic breakdown it’s always so difficult making that decision. You meet someone new and you wonder how much you should tell them? You wonder what that person’s threshold of ‘strange’ is, and at what point in my story w...
He bent over Farid and wiped some soot from his cold forehead. "Roxanne knows it," he said. "She'll tell it to you. Just go to her and... and tell her I've had to go away. Tell her I'm going to find out if the story is true." He spoke with a strange ...
I recognized it instantly. It was a made-up story, a fantasy, the tale of four kids who went through a magic wardrobe and found themselves in a strange new world. I'd read it more times than I could remember, and although I sneered at the thought of ...
Turn it off,” she said, her voice cracking. “It’s still good music,” Joe told her with an almost apologetic shrug. “It’s crap,” she breathed, still totally taken aback by the music playing again. He shook his head. “No, it’s not cra...
That narrow stretch of sand knows nothing in the world better than it does the white waves that whip it , caress it , collapse on to it . The white foam knows nothing better than those sands which wait for it , rise to it and suck it in .but what do ...
...the point, the essential quality of the act of reading, now and always, is that it tends to no foreseeable end, to no conclusion. Every reading prolongs another, begun in some afternoon thousands of years ago and of which we know nothing; every re...
And now at the airport, after shaking hands with everybody, waving good-bye, I think about all the different ways we leave people in this world. Cheerily waving good-bye to some at airports, knowing we'll never see each other again. Leaving others on...
