My mother showed her gratitude for her life in exile by alluding to India’s modernity: the expansive railway network; the Bollywood movies she came to love for their tumultuous stories which ultimately conceded to the cardinal guidelines she held i...
I have seen many cases like N. during the five years I've been in practice. I sometimes picture these unfortunates as men and women being pecked to death by predatory birds. The birds are invisible - at least until a psychiatrist who is good, or luck...
Out in the stone-pile the toad squatted with its glowing jewel-eyes and, maybe, its memories. I don't know if you'll admit a toad could have memories. But I don't know, either, if you'll admit there was once witchcraft in America. Witchcraft doesn't ...
But it doesn't happen that way, I keep telling myself knowingly and sadly. Only in our fraternity pledges and masonic inductions, our cowboy movies and magazine stories, not in our real-life lives. For, the seventeenth-century humanist to the contrar...
Nineteenth-century preacher Henry Ward Beecher's last words were "Now comes the mystery." The poet Dylan Thomas, who liked a good drink at least as much as Alaska, said, "I've had eighteen straight whiskeys. I do believe that's a record," before dyin...
I see the glow before I see her. The orange light is so strong it’s hard to believe the house isn’t on fire, but when feet appear at the top of the staircase, I can finally see that the light isn’t coming from the house. It’s coming from her....
Oh, right. She doesn’t know your secret identity.” Andy unzipped his sweatshirt and tossed it on a chair. “So, Meg Ryan just sent Tom Hanks a book but…” “No, Meg Ryan just sent NY152 a book, which was then overnighted to Tom Hanks, who li...
Until that rainy Sunday at the movies 31 years ago, for me, companionship had been a mandate for life’s good times. After Orca, it became a choice. My trip to the theater helped me to distinguish between loneliness (experienced by default), and sol...
My Heart I'm not going to cry all the time nor shall I laugh all the time, I don't prefer one "strain" to another. I'd have the immediacy of a bad movie, not just a sleeper, but also the big, overproduced first-run kind. I want to be at least as aliv...
How do we know we're not people in a movie?' she asked. I looked at her not knowing how to reply. Mama, [...] how do we know that things are real?' Great. Now we have a junior existentialist in the house. Well, we don't know. We just have to hope tha...
Hans Gruber: [on the radio] Mr. Mystery Guest? Are you still there? John McClane: Yeah, I'm still here. Unless you wanna open the front door for me. Hans Gruber: Uh, no, I'm afraid not. But, you have me at a loss. You know my name but who are you? Ju...
The Bride: [to the viewers] Looked dead, didn't I? But I wasn't. But it wasn't from lack of trying, I can tell you that. Actually, Bill's last bullet put me in a coma. A coma I was to lie in for four years. When I woke up, I went on what the movie ad...
Carl Denham: Wait a minute, what about Kong? Jack Driscoll: Well, what about him? Carl Denham: We can here to get a moving picture, and we've found something worth more than all the movies in the world! Captain Englehorn: [incredulous] What? Carl Den...
Vitruvius: Emmet... Emmet: Who said that? Vitruvius: I did. I am Ghost Vitruvius. Oooooh. Emmet, you didn't let me finish earlier because I died. The reason I made up the prophecy was because I knew that whoever found the piece could become the speci...
Arthur Bannister: [on the movie screen, "The Lady from Shanghai" is playing] I'm aiming at you, lover. Mrs. Dalton: I'm aiming at you, lover. Arthur Bannister: Of course, killing you is killing myself. Mrs. Dalton: Of course, killing you is killing m...
Nemo Nobody aged 118: I've got nothing to say to you. I'm Mr. Nobody, a man who doesn't exist. Young journalist: Do you remember what the world was like before telemerization? Quasi-immortality? What was it like when humans were mortals? Nemo Nobody ...
Lester Siegel: Okay, you got 6 people hiding out in a town of what, 4 million people, all of whom chant "death to America" all the livelong day. You want to set up a movie in a week. You want to lie to Hollywood, a town where everybody lies for a liv...
Senior Ed Bloom: I don't know if you're aware of this, Josephine, but African parrots, in their native home of the Congo, they speak only French. Josephine: Really? Senior Ed Bloom: You're lucky to get four words out of them in English, but if you we...
Guy in Restaurant: 'Scuse me. John Malkovich: Mm-hmm? Guy in Restaurant: Are you John Malkovich? John Malkovich: Yes, I am. Guy in Restaurant: Wow! You're really, uh, great in that movie... John Malkovich: Oh? Guy in Restaurant: ...where you play tha...
Simple answers to the most difficult questions: 1. Why do humans find it difficult to express themselves? To relate to the movies and books, later. 2. Why do humans make everything look so big, beautiful & complicated? Ego feels good. 3. Why do human...
A rap at the back door made her jump, and she peered through the window for a long time before she eased open the door a crack. She left the security chain on. 'What do you want, Richard?' Richard Morrell's police cruiser was parked in the drive. He ...
