When Josey woke up and saw the feathery frost on her windowpane, she smiled. Finally, it was cold enough to wear long coats and tights. It was cold enough for scarves and shirts worn in layers, like camouflage. It was cold enough for her lucky red ca...
Know your load. That’s rule numero uno in this business, which is why I make them count the penguins out in front of me one at a time. I’m not going to be the schmuck who shows up in Orlando two birds short of a dinner party....I know I’m pulli...
By the time they had called at the baker's and climbed to the top of Cap Diamant, the sun, dropping with incredible quickness, had already disappeared. They sat down in the blue twilight to eat their bread and await the turbid afterglow which is pecu...
Reading's ability to beam you up to a different world is a good part of the reason why people like me do it in the first place---because dollar for dollar, hour per hour, it's the most expedient way to get from our proscribed little "here" to an imag...
I am neither religious nor superstitious, but there is something otherworldly about the space where two roads come together. The devil is said to set up shop there if you want to swap your soul for something more useful. If you believe that God can b...
It was like walking into another world. While the mansion was bright, warm, comfy and filled with sound and color, the outside was dark, cold, colorless and devoid of people. I found myself standing beside Thomas in the street. The paved road felt so...
Tibby sat on the outside of a group of kids in the film program. There was a lot of dark clothing and heavy footwear, and quite a few piercings glinting in sunlight. They had invited her to sit with them while they all finished up their lunches befor...
Celeste rejoined him. "How you ladies do love a bargain," he said. "You were listening!" "I left before you shared the secrets of your undergarments." Jack looked sheepish. "That didn't sound quite how I intended." Celeste blushed. "You should not ha...
I was still alive. Ha! Take that kidnappers. Still alive. Maybe it was my butt that was feeding me. I always thought it was kind of round. I bet my body was eating up all the fat stores from my butt now. Yeah. See, having a big ass is a good thing. G...
In fact her maturity and blood kinship converted her passion to fever, so it was more affliction than affection. It literally knocked her down at night, and raised her up in the morning, for when she dragged herself off to bed, having spent another d...
Come boy, and pour for me a cup Of old Falernian. Fill it up With wine, strong, sparkling, bright, and clear; Our host decrees no water here. Let dullards drink the Nymph's pale brew, The sluggish thin their blood with dew. For such pale stuff we hav...
As if this great outburst of anger had purged all my ills, killed all my hopes, I looked up at the mass of signs and stars in the night sky and laid myself open for the first time to the benign indifference of the world- and finding it so much like m...
We have also set up for them an edifying project for a continuous mitigation of their own tyranny, ascribing to them an unshakeable faith in the triumph of virtue, as well as in the moral justification of their crimes. These are the theories of well-...
Becoming drunk is a journey that generally elates him in the early stages—he's good company, expansive, mischievous and fun, the famous old poet, almost as happy listening as talking. But once the destination is met, once established up there on th...
It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe. To feel i...
Jake's POV: Meanwhile, Ally was here with Marshall Moss, who she was obviously going to hook up with later. They'd barely stopped touching each other all night. Even now, they were out in the middle of the dance floor dancing to some Black Eyed Peas ...
Jake's POV: It was just too bad that Chloe was freezing Ally out even though her family hadn't been affected. Because otherwise Ally would be here and maybe I could be making out with her instead of Lisa Freckles. Except that Ally would be making out...
For myself I can say that, having had every good thing that money can buy, an experience like another, I could part without a pang with every possession I have. We live in uncertain times and our all may yet be taken from us. With enough plain food t...
How everyone is struggling for something. Trying to keep the balance. Struggling to find their way back. Doing the best they can with what they've been dealt. Staying in place, doing anything to keep from sinking. To keep from rising. Until something...
... even in his most artificial creations, nature is the material upon which man has to work; certain spots will persist in remaining surrounded by the vassals of their own special sovereignty, and will raise their immemorial standards among all the ...
I focused on the passing houses filled with couples who’d somehow survived this teenage craziness of ‘he likes her but she likes him and he likes somebody else, you just can’t win.’ How did they do it? How did they end up in their golden, war...
