Ben, there are more important things going on,” I answered. “DESIGNATED DRIVER!” “What?” “You’re my designated driver! Yes! You are so designated! I love that you answered! That’s so awesome! I have to be home by six! And I designate ...
Somewhere, deep within me, beyond the passion, beyond the beauty of the night, that little spark of Daily magic ignited in me again, began burning in a place that had gone dark and untended, that had yearned to be bright and warm. I felt it now, some...
He’s as tense as I am, maybe even more so, but it’s so hard to reconcile that with the serenity of weightlessness. His faux-blond hair is floating out away from his head. He’s wearing a worn, much-mended, and too-large shirt his friend in town ...
Our society has long treated men as machines, as bodies expendable in the name of progress or profit. Men have overruled their pain and soul's delight, taught to think of themselves as "mechanisms". Such an estrangement wounds very deeply; it has gon...
Mrs. Almond lived much farther up town, in an embryonic street with a high number—a region where the extension of the city began to assume a theoretic air, where poplars grew beside the pavement (when there was one), and mingled their shade with th...
Early youth is a baffling time. The present moment is nice but it does not last. Living in it is like waiting in a junction town for the morning limited; the junction may be interesting but some day you will have to leave it and you do not know where...
I had a dream about you. You claimed Orafouraville was a town, and I declared it a city. You said it was one resident shy of being a city, and I said, “So what if that one resident is shy? Do shy people not count as citizens? Do introverts not pay ...
If you really want space on public transport you should carry some pornography from the 1970s and a pair of children's safety scissors, then delicately cut out all the eyes of the glamour models whilst whistling. Every now and again mutter, 'Why are ...
Leaving Baumauer’s frown to reappear like a fault line, Kalist retraces his route to his desk and sits down, then leans right back in his chair, looks up at the magnificent window behind him and chants – in a whisper so low Baumauer can’t make ...
Oh, I can't explain. When I like people immensely I never tell their names to anyone. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvellous to us. The com...
A man leaves his great house because he's bored With life at home, and suddenly returns, Finding himself no happier abroad. He rushes off to his villa driving like mad, You'ld think he's going to a house on fire, And yawns before he's put his foot in...
I suppose there has been nothing like the airports since the age of the stage-stops - nothing quite as lonely, as sombre-silent. The red-brick depots were built right into the towns they marked - people didn't get off at those isolated stations unles...
Suppose just five percent of the tens of thousands of people in Tiananmen Square at that time had portable phones, digital cameras, and video cameras, and the content from 10% of those devices had been uploaded and spread via the 'Net? There wouldn't...
Boy you really missed the boat. I’ll make it simple, so’s even fuckin you can understand. Papa God growed us up till we could wear long pants; then he licensed his name to dollar bills, left some car keys on the table, and got the fuck outta town...
Having spent a long time in open spaces, whether sea or desert, it is a luxury to be able to take refuge in towns with narrow streets which provide a fragile fortress against the assaults of the infinite. There is such a sense of security against the...
I went to a concert upstairs in Town Hall. The composer whose works were being performed had provided program notes. One of these notes was to the effect that there is too much pain in the world. After the concert I was walking along with the compose...
[the morning after Schindler leaves Brinnlitz, a Russian officer finds the workers] Russian officer: You have been liberated by the Soviet army! Itzhak Stern: Have you been in Poland? Russian officer: I just came from Poland. Itzhak Stern: Are there ...
[first lines] Narrator: [title card] In 1941 China and Japan had been in a state of undeclared war for four years. A Japanese army of occupation was in control of much of the countryside and many towns and cities. In Shanghai thousands of Westerners,...
Idgie Threadgoode: One time, there this this lake [pause] Idgie Threadgoode: and uh, it was right outside of town. We used to go fishin' and swimmin' and canoein' in it, and uh [sniffle] Idgie Threadgoode: this one November this flock o'ducks came in...
M. Gustave: The beginning of the end of the end of the beginning has begun. A sad finale played off-key on a broken-down saloon piano in the outskirts of a forgotten ghost town. I'd rather not bear witness to such blasphemy. Zero: Me neither. M. Gust...
Sheriff Hartwell: Aiding an escaped criminal and a little charge of kidnapping. Fred, the Mayor: Well, looks like about ten years a piece for you two birds. Walter Burns: Does it? [unimpressed] Hildy Johnson: If you think you've got The Morning Post ...
