Who are you, Martin Eden? he demanded of himself in the looking- glass, that night when he got back to his room. He gazed at himself long and curiously. Who are you? What are you? Where do you belong? You belong by rights to girls like Lizzie Connoll...
Suddenly life was good, even glamorous. We were poor but didn’t know it, or maybe we did know, but we didn’t care, because my mother had stopped disappearing into her bedroom. Our apartment building was surrounded by empty lots, which were all th...
And it all came to pass, all that she had hoped, but it did not fill her with rapture nor carry her away with the power or the fervor she had expected. She had imagined it all different, and had imagined herself different, too. In dreams and poems ev...
I hated seeing these spasmodic upside-down chicken heads stretching to puncture my flesh. I imagined once that they reached my groin and pecked out my penis and my huevos and kept pecking until they got to my gut and my eyes and my brain, until I was...
It's not politically correct to say that you love one child more than you love your others. I love of my kids, period, and they're all your favorites in different ways. But ask any parent who's been through some kind of crisis surrounding a child--a ...
Now here it was after all, preserved by some considerate hand with varnisch and wax. Preserved along with it, like stale air in an unopened room, was the well known fear which had surrounded and filled those days, so much of it that I hadn't even kno...
APPROACH Rain is falling. Winter approaches. I drive towards it. In the slow rain. In the semi-darkness. Cello music is playing in the car. The deep sad sound of the cello. It almost swamps me. Routine endeavours to swamp me. The everyday paying of b...
I hadn’t gone to Andover, or Horace Mann or Eton. My high school had been the average kind, and I’d been the best student there. Such was not the case at Eli. Here, I was surrounded by geniuses. I’d figured out early in my college career that t...
The concept of country, homeland, dwelling place becomes simplified as "the environment" -- that is, what surrounds us, we have already made a profound division between it an ourselves. We have given up the understanding -- dropped it out of our lang...
Why Dream? Life is a difficult assignment. We are fragile creatures, expected to function at high rates of speed, and asked to accomplish great and small things each day. These daily activities take enormous amounts of energy. Most things are out of ...
In the end Navidson is left with one page and one match. For a long time he waits in darkness and cold, postponing this final bit of illumination. At last though, he grips the match by the neck and after locating the friction strip sparks to life a f...
As a young man I started searching for my own identity by looking into family, friends and inside Myself. My mother always taught us to live free even when confined, meaning “never let anyone break you down physically or mentally.” Since my livin...
If I understand you rightly, you had formed a surmise of such horror as I have hardly words to-- Dear Miss Morland, consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have entertained. What have you been judging from? Remember the country and the age...
String of love Universe surrounds you The Saints kneels to you My freezing heart needs you Because your the fire that keeps me warm The scientist believe you Even without a peer-review The existence of your existence Is the evidence that the true-lov...
Noodles: [to Deborah] There were two things I couldn't get out of my mind. One was Dominic, the way he said, "I slipped," just before he died. The other was you. How you used to read me your Song of Songs, remember? "How beautiful are your feet / In ...
Jake Hoyt: [after repeatedly punching Detective Harris] It's no fun when the rabbit has the gun, is it? Alonzo Harris: [laughing] My nigga... [to surrounding crowd] Alonzo Harris: Hey. First dom who puts one in his head... I'll make you a rich man. C...
Woody: [through his voice box] Reach for the sky! Sid Phillips: Huh? Woody: This town ain't big enough for the two of us! Sid Phillips: What? Woody: Somebody's poisoned the waterhole! Sid Phillips: It's busted. Woody: Who are you calling busted, Bust...
[On the shuttle bus ride to the Hilton Miami Airport Hotel] Natalie Keener: Never? Ryan Bingham: No. Natalie Keener: Ever? Ryan Bingham: No. Natalie Keener: You never wanna get married? Ryan Bingham: Nope. Natalie Keener: Never want kids? Ryan Bingha...
[as the Spartans are surrounded] Persian General: Leonidas, my compliments and congratulations. You surely have turned calamity to victory. Despite your insufferable arrogance, the god-king has come to admire Spartan valor and fighting skill. You wil...
Reality is a very subjective affair. I can only define it as a kind of gradual accumulation of information; and as specialization. If we take a lily, for instance, or any other kind of natural object, a lily is more real to a naturalist than it is to...
