…growing pale and sober with the thought that her fate was soon to be decided; for, like all young people, she was sure that her whole life could be settled by one human creature, quite forgetting how wonderfully Providence trains us by disappointm...
You really love to gossip, don't you?” he asked, wishing she had brought him a glass of wine. “Yes, I suppose I do,” she answered, sounding surprised at the realization. “You think that's why I love reading novels so much?
Our instinct may be to see the impossibility of tracking everything down as frustrating, dispiriting, perhaps even appalling, but it can just as well be viewed as almost unbearably exciting. We live on a planet that has a more or less infinite capaci...
Three Pines wasn’t on any tourist map, being too far off any main or even secondary road. Like Narnia, it was generally found unexpectedly and with a degree of surprise that such an elderly village should have been hiding in this valley all along. ...
This new resolve gave her a sort of light-headed self-confidence: when she left the dinner-table she felt so easy and careless that she was surprised to see that the glass of champagne beside her plate was untouched. She felt as if all its sparkles w...
To his surprise, Jean kissed him. So often in the past, teasing, she had said she would, one day. Now she did, and it was a quick and fragrant touch to his lips that gave him courage and, even before he started out made him yearn to come back home.
His own parents, the estimable Gilchrists, a couple who had taken the 'till death' part of their own wedding vows so seriously he wouldn't be surprised if they one day throttled one another, had naturally wangled the next best seat in the house: row ...
I found a copy of Leven's birth certificate and was surprised to see his birth name listed as E. Leven Thumps. I assume the E. stands for , and I have no idea why they didnt spell it out, but it's intresting to think that it took exactly whacks or th...
Ben kissed me like he could kiss me forever, like he had to kiss me forever and he wanted to, he wanted me, and when he felt my surprise at that, I could feel again how beautiful I was to him, how I was beautiful beyond words.
We are taught in the Prayer Book to "give thanks to God for His great glory", as if we owed Him more thanks for being what He necessarily is than for any particular benefit He confers upon us… so indeed we do and to know God is to know this.
Growing maturity is marked by the increasing liberties we take with our travelling... we made the discovery (some people never make it) that real books can be taken on a journey and that hours of golden reading can so be added to its other delights.
And then there was the much spoken of lock-up. It looked like a giant pepperpot built of stone. A flowering creeper grew up it, and, next to the door and restrained by a chain, there was an enormous pig. When it saw their approach it got on its hind ...
He was, she realised, quite graceful. The very idea surprised her. Male grace was a quality she'd never thought of beyond the ballroom; either a man could dance a quadrille with skill and without stepping on her feet or he could not. But here was ano...
A clone’s most valuable function would be as a gift giver, because who else but you knows exactly what you want? Only your clone. And besides being the perfect gift, it’d also be a surprise, because it’s not like you bought your own gift.
All she had to do was make the simplest of gestures - open her hands and let go her hold. She lifted one hand and moved the fingers of it; they responded, in surprise and obedience, and this obedience of a thousand little unsuspected muscles was in i...
As natural selection acts by competition, it adapts the inhabitants of each country only in relation to the degree of perfection of their associates; so that we need feel no surprise at the inhabitants of any one country, although on the ordinary vie...
Considering that we live in an era of evolutionary everything---evolutionary biology, evolutionary medicine, evolutionary ecology, evolutionary psychology, evolutionary economics, evolutionary computing---it was surprising how rarely people thought i...
I'd had nearly four years of experience looking at these clocks, but their sluggishness never ceased to surprise. If I am ever told that I have one day to live, I will head straight to the hallowed halls of Winter Park High School, where a day has be...
People only go to the places they have visited first in their minds," she says, uttering the phrase as if secrets to the universe have just been shared. "Perhaps that is how learning can help you. However, first you must see it, feel it, and then bel...
The woman turned to me with a pleasant smile on her face. It didn't waiver or look forced, and her expression didn't appear surprised that Paul was married to an African American woman. Point in her favour. If she became freaked out by an interracial...
Protect your enthusiasm from the negativity and fear of others. Never decide to do nothing just because you can only do little. Do what you can. You would be surprised at what "little" acts have done for our world.
