More than one thing is never true. People love to say the opposite, love to talk about inner conflict, nuances, levels of complication. But if this last year has taught her anything, it has taught her that people are clearer on what they want than th...
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ME AND YOU When I hold a rose, I see the soft, velvety petals and smile, because tucked between those precious petals is a special gift - the one of a fragrance, pure and sweet. When you hold a rose, you see the thorns along th...
She hardly ever began conversations with strangers just to talk. It was not a matter of shyness. For her, a conversation had a straightforward function. How do I get to the pharmacy? or How much does the hotel room cost? Conversation also had a profe...
MARK ARM : Even if I did talk to [Layne Staley], I don’t know what I would have said. Seeing him so far down the line on this trajectory that he had set for himself made me queasy. It seemed to me like once he discovered heroin, he decided he was g...
No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing. At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, ...
I'm sure you've heard people talk about their Heart's Desire—well that's a load of rot. Hearts are idiots. They're big and squishy and full of daft dreams. They flounce off to write poetry and moon at folk who aren't worth the mooning. Bones are th...
It is illness that makes us recognize that we do not live in isolation but are chained to a being from a different realm, worlds apart from us and by whom it is impossible to make ourselves understood: our body. Were we to meet a brigand on the road,...
People don't want children to know what they to know. They want their kids to know what they If you're a teacher you're in a constant battle with mildly deluded adults who think the world will get better if you imagine it better. You want to teach ab...
The opportunity was too perfect to miss. Harry crept silently around behind Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, bent down, and scooped a large handful of mud out of the path. 'We were just talking about your friend Hagrid,' Malfoy said to Ron. 'Just trying to...
"What?" "What?" Dylan asked back. "You just said my name." "No I didn't" I sat up, banging my head on the roof. "Who is that?" "Hey, stay down here where the air is good, okay?" Dylan pulled me gently back down. "Hows your head?" "Not good, I think."...
He built up a situation that was far enough from the truth. It never occurred to him that Helen was to blame. He forgot the intensity of their talk, the charm that had been lent him by sincerity, the magic of Oniton under darkness and of the whisperi...
In my early teens, I heard about and its mutating typewriters and talking cockroaches. While I would hardly classify its dystopic vision as erotica now, at the time, was my first foray into consuming smut. It was because of Burroughs that I knew abou...
To write is to forget. Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life. Music soothes, the visual arts exhilarates, the performing arts (such as acting and dance) entertain. Literature, however, retreats from life by turning in into slumber. Th...
The costumes help. They make it less real, disguise what it really is both for the actors and for the people who'll see it on the screen. It's like the people who read and because it's in Russia they can say, 'Oh, that's not my pain they're talking a...
As I got closer to the fence, I held my shirt over my nose to block the smell. One stallion waded through the muck and whinnied angrily at me. He bared his teeth, which were pointed like a bear's. I tried to talk to him in my mind. I can do that with...
It's been awhile since I have heard from you, To me it felt like it was only yesterday that all we could do was talk to each other To me it felt like it was only yesterday that I'd fall asleep with you on my mind and be awakened with a smile from you...
The way to beat Luke," he said. "If I'm right, it's the only way you'll stand a chance." I took a deep breath. "Okay. I'm listening." Nico glanced inside my room. His eyebrows furrowed. "Is that...is that blue birthday cake?" He sounded hungry, maybe...
I lost hope when I saw the horses’ teeth. As I got closer to the fence, I held my shirt over my nose to block the smell. One stallion waded through the muck and whinnied angrily at me. He bared his teeth, which were pointed like a bear’s. I tried...
I feel guilty because for a long time I didn't allow myself a television, and I used to drop that fact in conversation to impress people. I thought it made me sound dignified. A couple of years ago, however, I visited a church in the suburbs and ther...
She helped the hunter with the cooking as a husband helps his wife: when he had gone out to hunt and left something to stew, she would take the pot off the fire. But she never knew when to take it off; sometimes it was cooked to pieces, and she never...
So I make no effort to hide my pain. I don’t ever put it all on display like this—but for today and all the rest of the days of the trial, I must. My every flinch, every flicker of pain, will be magnified a hundred times over, then dissected by t...
