I love you,” was his reply. “I make myself keep on loving you, despite what you do. I've got to love you. We all have to love you, and believe in you, and think you are looking out for our best interests. But look at us, Momma, and really see us.
I do not understand people who will lustily throw $40,000 at the shiny red automobile of their choice, but well up with tears and become outraged when they are asked to pay $5 for a damaged videotape. Either they are fucked up and their priorities ar...
It was in the spring that Josephine and I had first loved each other, or, at least, had first come into the full knowledge that we loved. I think that we must have loved each other all our lives, and that each succeeding spring was a word in the reve...
I don't think fireflies have friends. They seem to be singular bugs. They travel in packs, I guess, because when you see one, usually you'll see others. but they're never flocking together, like gnats or hornets. They're individuals. They're independ...
Somehow, Sydney had an internal clock that told her when time was up. I think it was part of her inherent ability to keep track of a hundred things at once. Not me. In these moments, my thoughts were usually focused on getting her shirt off and wheth...
Not everything about me is cute." "That's true, some things are cute. The rest are sexy. Astonishing, agonizingly sexy. It's a wonder I can get anything done at all, when all I ever think about is the way your lips taste or how your fingertips feel o...
...I thought, with a certain amount of sorrow, how much enormous talent there must be in the world for nature simply to toss it away so arbitrarily! But nature could not care less what we think about it, and as far as talent is concerned, there is su...
Sacrfice," the captain said. "You made one. I made one. We all made them. But you were angry over yours. You kept thinking about what you lost. You didn't get it. Sacrifice is a part of life. It's supposed to be. It's not something to regret. It's so...
The bride waits here," she said, running her hands along her hair, taking in her image but seeming to drift away. "This is the moment you think about what you're doing. Who you're choosing. Who you will love. If it's right, Eddie, this can be such a ...
This is my first real memory of James. In every memory before that, he’s just a flash of color, a warm body with a blurred face, a comforting voice begging me not to die. When he planted himself between our father and me that day, an eight-year-old...
You raise an eyebrow at me speculatively. “Really?” you enquire your voice full of sarcasm. “Respect me how Jenna? By choosing not to spend any time with me? By not even bothering to let me know where you are? By rolling in when you feel like i...
I once read that love is like a rose: we fixate on the blossom, but it's the thorny stem that keeps it alive and aloft. I think marriage is like that. Like my father said, the things of greatest value are the things we fight for. And in the end, if w...
It's a kind of heresy to say so, but I think our race has made forms more beautiful than what was here before us. Sometimes god's handiwork is crude. There is no more ugly thing than a lobster. There's not much pretty about a caribou. It has an ungai...
Events cast their shadows ahead; before a harsh winter, wild animals grow thicker fur, and the beaver puts on a thicker layer of fat. What kind of times and what sort of tasks can lie ahead for a generation that must think so harshly, even at such a ...
Not that the incredulous person doesn't believe in anything. It's just that he doesn't believe in everything. Or he believes in one thing at a time. He believes a second thing only if it somehow follows from the first thing. He is nearsighted and met...
I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of reade...
Parents are programmed to want the best for their kids, regardless of what they get in return. That's what love is supposed to be like, right? But in fact, if you think about it, that's kind of a strange belief. Given what we know about the way peopl...
But that was all bravado. Already - how had it come about so quickly - desire had begotten need. A few whispered words (perhaps he didn't mean them) and I was ready to follow. It was worse to think of staying behind, to grind one day upon another. No...
I didn't bring you here," he said. "You think you're Miss Special Destiny of the year?" "No," I shot back, furious. "And I don't damn well to be - whatever the hell you are. But sometimes there isn't a choice. Right?" "Careful. You might accidentally...
I still get angry when older people assume that everyone in my generation, screws around. They're probably the same ones who think all kids use dope. It's true that we are more open than our parents but that just means we accept sex and talk about it...
I sat down on the grass and looked up at Brae. He was still shirtless and - although it pained me a little to even think it - it suited him. He was in really good shape and he looked less uptight without it, more relaxed. If it wasn't for his weird s...
