In New York I'd go to the movies three or four times a week. Here I've upped it to six or seven, mainly because I'm too lazy to do anything else. Fortunately, going to the movies seems to suddenly qualify as an intellectual accomplishment, on a par w...
Adrien Bach, main character from The Maker: You know, when you’re a kid, you think you’re going to grow up to be something special, do something important. You’re not going to be a regular Joe like everybody else. But then you get out there and...
Then the man smiled, and his smile was a shock, for it was all on one side, going up in the right cheek and down in the left. There was nothing, rationally speaking, to scare anyone about this. Many people have this nervous trick of a crooked smile, ...
While they were dancing, the buoyancy that the champagne had given her left her all at once, and she slumped and felt suddenly tired and miserable about all the things that Denys should have said and done and hadn't. At the end of the dance there was...
He had never imagined so clearly the consequences of mailing a letter--the impossibility of retrieving it from the iron mouth of the box; the inevitability if its steady progress through the postal system; the passing from bag to bag and postman to p...
She watched him take the trumpet from its case and fit the mouthpiece. She watched as he raised it to his lips and then, so suddenly, from that tiny cup of metal against his flesh, the sound would burst out like a glorious, brilliant knife dividing t...
Before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars, points of light and reason. ...And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you wer...
Carol, a swing-shift cocktail waitress in the Bird of Paradise's show lounge had gotten home (guesswork, here) around 2:15 - 2:30, poured herself a glass of milk, and had opened the back door of the kitchen for reasons unknown. (Fingerprints were lat...
Jenny lacked any sense of property - she was constantly apologising to Yevgenia and asking for her permission to open the small upper window in order to let in her elderly tabby cat. Her main interests and worries centered around this cat and how to ...
Speaking the words he had been taught, directing them no longer upward but to the earth on which he knelt, he prayed: 'For what we are about to receive make us truly thankful.' ... he... felt his heart suddenly flow over with thankfulness... like a g...
Wen grinned and I felt a warm glow and an odd dizzy sensation. And then I remembered something my dad once wrote me about falling in love. He said the phrase was apt because falling is exactly what it can feel like, as if you've finally allowed yours...
Supposing I know of a flower that is absolutely unique, that is nowhere to be found except on my planet, and any minute that flower could accidentally be eaten up by a little lamb, isn't that important? If a person loves a flower that is the only one...
Yet losing him seemed unbearable. He was the one she loved, the one she would always love, and as he leaned in to kiss her, she gave herself over to him. While he held her close, she ran her hands over his shoulders and back, feeling the strength in ...
To my amazement, miraculously, the lid suddenly loosened and slid all the way open, revealing its hidden cargo: A stack of small paper booklets. Dozens and dozens of them. Booklets made of ordinary sheets of white writing paper, folded in half, and h...
Piper went a little crazy. She cried out with relief and dove straight into the water. What was she thinking? She didn't take a rope or a life vest or anything. But at the moment, she was just so happy that she paddled over to Leo and kissed him on t...
Sometimes you wish to escape to another part of the book. You stop reading and riffle the pages, catching sight of the story as it races ahead, not above the world but through it, through forests and complications, the chaos of intentions and cities....
You think that because I am unwanted, because I am neglected and-and discarded-" My voice inches higher with every word, the unrestrained emotions suddenly screaming through my lungs. "You think I don't have a heart? You think I don't feel? You think...
Frank stared at her. "But you throw Ding Dongs at monsters." Iris looked horrified. "Oh, they're not Ding Dongs." She rummaged under the counter and brought out a package of chocolate covered cakes that looked exactly like Ding Dongs. "These are glut...
Well, now If little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you Little by little If suddenly you forget me Do not look for me For I shall already have forgotten you If you think it long and mad the wind of banners that passes through my life...
You love me?” My brain was mush and I wasn’t sure if it was from his words or the pain pill. Yes, I love you.” His eyes bored into mine. “ I love you.” I traced his cheek with my fingers. “Can you tell me again when I’m not on pain medi...
Suddenly the full long wail of a ship's horn surged through the open window and flooded the dim room - a cry of boundless, dark, demanding grief; pitch-black and glabrous as a whale's back and burdened with all the passions of the tides, the memory o...
