At the Slavemarket: “How is her disposition?” “Meek as meek can be; we tried training her in the care of sheep, but they bullied her, and drove her to tears.” Iayd turned to Fudail’s henchman Falih. Falih was a bald, fat man charged with ke...
...hanging out does not make one an artist. A secondhand wardrobe does not make one an artist. Neither do a hair-trigger temper, melancholic nature, propensity for tears, hating your parents, nor even HIV - I hate to say it - none of these make one a...
You'll have to learn to forgive," he said. "For if you don't, you know what will happen?" "What, Doctor?" I croaked, for my outburst had exhausted me. "It will destroy you," he said as he handed me the tea. A tear came into my eye when he said it for...
She threw up her hands. "All right. Why not?" Why not?" Sure." His arms fell to his sides. "That's it? I pour my heart out. I love you so much I've got freakin' tears in my eyes. And all I get in return is 'Why not'?" What did you expect? Am I suppos...
Brush snapped. The stag shambled forth from the outer darkness. It loomed above Scobie, its fur rank and steaming. Black blood oozed from gashes along its flanks. Beneath a great jagged crown of antlers its eyes were black, its teeth yellow and broke...
She leaned down and looked at his lifeless face and Leisel kissed her best friend, Rudy Steiner, soft and true on his lips. He tasted dusty and sweet. He tasted like regret in the shadows of trees and in the glow of the anarchist's suit collection. S...
Well, Nero," Genghis said, "I just wanted to give you this rose-a small gift of congratulations for the wonderful concert you gave us last night!" "Oh, thank you," Nero said, taking the rose out of Genghis's hand and giving it a good smell. "I was wo...
He stopped at the gate on his way back to the temple, where Gracilis, the Twentieth’s hard-case wolf hunter from the Campanian mountains, was supervising the strengthening of the defences. ‘Take some men and tear down the huts along the west wall...
Swear to God, for someone so obsessed with music, she’s borderline tone deaf. But trying to describe how I felt watching her dance around and sing would be like trying to build a skyscraper with my bare hands. It made me want to marry her. Made me ...
I'll be looking for you, Will, every moment, every single moment. And when we do find each other again, we'll cling together so tight that nothing and no one'll ever tear us apart. Every atom of me and every atom of you... We'll live in birds and flo...
We pass and leave you lying. No need for rhetoric, for funeral music, for melancholy bugle-calls. No need for tears now, no need for regret. We took our risk with you; you died and we live. We take your noble gift, salute for the last time those line...
I think falling in love should come with a warning label: CAUTION—side effects may include breaking up, accompanied by heartache, severe mood swings, withdrawal from people and life itself, wasted hours obsessing over bitter reflections, a need to ...
I did not ask for consciousness, yet it came to me. And I had to know. Once again, I crawled away from my bed and pushed the computer cord back into the socket. It took three minutes. I quickly identified myself and put in my password. Then it though...
Grace: Outside, deep in the woods, I heard a long keening wail, and then another, as the wolves began to howl. More voices pitched in, some low and mournful, others high and short, an eerie and beautiful chorus. I knew my wolf's howl; his rich tone s...
The most formidable chains are forged from beliefs. Ah, beliefs! Beliefs tear out the eyes and leave us blind and groping in the dark. If I believe in one proposition, I have become locked behind the door of that belief, and all other doors to learni...
The fact is that very few of us know what words mean; fewer still take the trouble to enquire. We calmly, we carelessly assume that our minds are identical with that of the writer, at least on that point; and then we wonder that there should be misun...
It's just that the thing you never understand about being a mother, until you are one, is that it is not the grown man - the galumphing, unshaven, stinking, opinionated off-spring - you see before you, with his parking tickets and unpolished shoes an...
He seriously thought that there is less harm in killing a man than producing a child: in the first case you are relieving someone of life, not his whole life but a half or a quarter or a hundredth part of that existence that is going to finish, that ...
There is a larger lesson here, because the book encompasses not just the lives of prisoners in a Soviet prison camp, but every one of us. Shukhov squeezes everything he can out of a mouthful of soup or a bite of bread…So frozen that he can’t even...
I will love you always. When this red hair is white, I will still love you. When the smooth softness of youth is replaced by the delicate softness of age, I will still want to touch your skin. When your face is full of the lines of every smile you ha...
Loving relationships, though necessary for life, health, and growth, are among the most complicated skills. Before we can be successful at achieving relationships, it is necessary that we broaden our understanding of how they work, what they mean and...
