A daffodil bulb will divide and redivide endlessly. That's why, like the peony, it is one of the few flowers you can find around abandoned farmhouses, still blooming and increasing in numbers fifty years after the farmer and his wife have moved to he...
The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality and my life, as I write this, is vital even when sad. I may wake up sometime next year without my mind again; it is not likely to stick around all the time. Meanwhile, however, I have discover...
I had an uneventful few days," it told her. "The most exciting thing was an hour-long lecture from the headmaster on taking our studies seriously. He said next year's exam will arrive sooner than we think." "No, they won't," Valkyrie said, frowning. ...
Don't expect me to be sane anymore. Don't let's be sensible. It was a marriage at Louveciennes—you can't dispute it. I came away with pieces of you sticking to me; I am walking about, swimming, in an ocean of blood, your Andalusian blood, distilled...
A Letter to Andre Breton, Originally Composed on a Leaf of Lettuce With an Ink-dipped Carrot On my bed, my green comforter draped over my knees like a lumpy turtle, I think about the Berlin Wall of years that separates us. In my own life, the years a...
Page 15, paperback version by Virago Press 1997: ... Let me ask you this, Mr Ai: do you know, by your own experience, what patriotism is?” ‘No’, I said, shaken by the force of the intese personality suddenly turning itself wholly upon me. ‘I ...
For millions of years flowers have been producing thorns. For millions of years sheep have been eating them all the same. And it's not serious, trying to understand why flowers go to such trouble to produce thorns that are good for nothing? It's not ...
If I could,” he went on, “I would remain like this indefinitely—clasped by you, held inside you, a part of you—without moving at all. When we make love, I fight climax with everything I have. I don’t want to come; I do not want it to end. N...
It always does seem to me that I am doing more work than I should do. It is not that I object to the work, mind you; I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. I love to keep it by me: the idea of getting rid of it nearly brea...
It is hard to bring paedophile rings to justice. Thankfully it does happen. Perhaps the most horrific recent case came before the High Court in Edinburgh in June 2007. It involved a mother who stood by and watched as her daughter of nine was gang-rap...
O! Time is a faerie-maid, dark is her dairy laid: Larders of mem'ry and amethyst lore. But one kiss from her lips On your lips as she slips One cold hand in your pocket will finish the chore. For her kiss it is sweet It is death, it is meat It is sha...
When I first read Lovecraft around 1971, and even more so when I began to read about his life, I immediately knew that I wanted to write horror stories. I had read Arthur Machen before I read Lovecraft, and I didn’t have that reaction at all. It wa...
I used to be terrified of death. My grandfather was terminal in the hospital across from my high school, yet I never visited him. That fact still haunts me to this day. Years later, my arms were around my grandmother as she struggled with her last br...
Isn’t it so weird how the number of dead people is increasing even though the earth stays the same size, so that one day there isn’t going to be room to bury anyone anymore? For my ninth birthday last year, Grandma gave me a subscription to Natio...
Natasha Romanoff: I know who killed Fury. Most of the intelligence community doesn't believe he exists. The ones that do call him the Winter Soldier. He's credited over two dozen assassinations in the last 50 years. Steve Rogers: So he's a ghost stor...
Dr. King Schultz: My name is Dr. King Schultz, and like yourself, Marshall, I am a servant of the court. The man lying dead in the dirt, who the good people of Daughtrey saw fit to elect as their sheriff, who went by the name of Bill Sharp, is actual...
Albus Dumbledore: [after Sirius' death] I know how you feel, Harry. Harry Potter: No you don't. [pause] Harry Potter: It's my fault. Albus Dumbledore: No, the fault is mine. I knew it was only a matter of time before Voldemort made the connection bet...
Harry: Tell me, exactly, how long it is that you've been working here? Sarah: Two years, seven months, three days and, I suppose, what... two hours? Harry: And how long have you been in love with Karl, our enigmatic chief designer? Sarah: Ahm, two ye...
Louise Schumacher: Then get out, go anywhere you want, go to a hotel, go live with her, and don't come back. Because, after 25 years of building a home and raising a family and all the senseless pain that we have inflicted on each other, I'm damned i...
Milt Shaw: You know, Ray, your contract with Atlantic expires in 4 months. Ray Charles: Yeah, I know. Ahmet and Jerry sent me my new contract. They're gonna double my royalties. Milt Shaw: Before we go down that road again I thought I'd check and see...
Guard: [at the wall] I'm charged with guarding the portal to another world, and you're asking me to just let you through! Young Dunstan Thorn: Yes. Because, let's be honest, it's a field. Look, [the guard points to the field at the other side of the ...
