Blackadder was fifty-four and had come to editing Ash out of pique. He was the son and grandson of Scottish schoolmasters. His grandfather recited poetry on firelight evenings: Marmion, Childe Harold, Ragnarok. His father sent him to Downing College ...
The second wolf dove straight into the free platter. Fibres of flesh ripped apart with the same terrible tearing sound of sacking stretched and broken. Red sprayed. Limbs flailed. The bloody gurgle of a scream tore from Logan’s throat as he struggl...
I experienced the happiest moment of my life when you took me in your arms as your wife and pressed me to your heart; when I even think of that moment my heart beats madly and I have a terrible longing for you, and I think I would hug you to death if...
The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banalit...
This book has nothing to do with cats. Or mice. Or self-motivation. This book is 100% 50% finished. But don’t worry, I finished the good half. But don’t be mistaken—the good half isn’t good at all. In fact, it’s remarkably terrible. It’s ...
The Sisters vanished entirely then, and Aunt Harriet was standing over Tessa, her face flushed with fever as it had been during the terrible illness that had killed her. She looked at Tessa with great sadness. "I tried," she said. "I tried to love yo...
He followed her into the bathroom and sat on the shut toilet seat while she washed her back with a brush. "I forgot to tell you," he said. "Liza sent us a wheel of Brie." "That's nice," she said, "but you know what? Brie gives me terribly loose bowel...
To be the father of growing daughters is to understand something of what Yeats evokes with his imperishable phrase 'terrible beauty.' Nothing can make one so happily exhilarated or so frightened: it's a solid lesson in the limitations of self to real...
It can even be thought that radium could become very dangerous in criminal hands, and here the question can be raised whether mankind benefits from knowing the secrets of Nature, whether it is ready to profit from it or whether this knowledge will no...
There are some who would vow that life isn’t fair. They believe the worst is yet to come, that evil will always conquer good, and that we have no control over our fate. It’s true, there are storms that shake our foundations and monsters that thre...
I have sometimes said to a client: “If you are so in touch with your feelings from your abusive childhood, then you should know what abuse feels like. You should be able to remember how miserable it was to be cut down to nothing, to be put in fear,...
Put this huge glow in the dark mask-smile of pessimism, with long teeth and big mouth, on the floor face, she srastetsya with your skin, it will flash whenever you are going to talk, she gave you amazing power, and you begin to understand, the extent...
Nobody knows what the whales may have to click and clack about, but it could be a form of voting-time to stop here and synchronously dive down in search of deep water squid, now time to resurface, move on, dive again. Clans also seem to caucus on whi...
Progress is the exploration of our own error. Evolution is a consolidation of what have always begun as errors. And errors are of two kinds: errors that turn out to be true and errors that turn out to be false (which are most of them). But they both ...
Magnus deeply disliked people who were early to business meetings. It was just as bad as being late, since it put everyone out, and even worse, people who were early always acted terribly superior about their bad timekeeping skills. They acted as tho...
When something terrible happens, a lifetime of small events and unremarkable decisions, of unresolved anger, and unexplored fears begins to play itself out in ways you least expect. You've been going along from one day to the next, not realizing that...
The best parenting advice I ever got was from a labor nurse who told me the following: 1. After your baby gets here, the dog will just be a dog. 2. The terrible twos last through age three. 3. Never ask your child an open-ended question, such as "Do ...
How strange it is. We have these deep terrible lingering fears about ourselves and the people we love. Yet we walk around, talk to people, eat and drink. We manage to function. The feelings are deep and real. Shouldn't they paralyze us? How is it we ...
Randal Graves: I thought you weren't even allowed to watch a lot of TV in your house cause you're all Christian and shit. Elias: Well, as it turns out, cars and trucks that turn into robots aren't really that blasphemous. Because my pastor says that ...
Lady Tottington: [over the phone] It's a disaster. I have the most terrible rabbit problem. The competition's only days away. You simply have to do something. Wallace: Certainly, M'um. Wallace: [Aside, to Gromit] I think we're about to go up in the w...
Professor Albus Dumbledore: [after James and Lilly's deaths] The boy survives. Professor Severus Snape: He doesn't need protection, the Dark Lord is gone! Professor Albus Dumbledore: The Dark Lord will return! And when he does, the boy will be in ter...
