It would have been funny if I had been an observer and not a participant, an idea that gave me a disconcerting insight into gossip. As I walked beside the silent Tamara, I realized that despite how entertaining certain stories were, at the bottom of ...
The President was trapped – and with nearly every president, it had come about from his own words. Presidential promises and statements… The people had this annoying way of remembering them. And even if they didn't, there were journalists and pol...
Of course, the fact that Dostoevsky can tell a juicy story isn’t enough to make him great. If it were, Judith Krantz and John Grisham would be great fiction writers, and by any but the most commercial standards they’re not even very good.
But how a game plan came to be, what a finished plan looked like, I had no idea. I’d heard that all copies were shredded as soon as the game was over.
If my life were a movie ... the title sequence would start out like a typical high school story, but then reveal that something's amiss. There'd be a tight shot, or piece of dialogue, or something that would make the viewer uncomfortable. Something t...
Milena found Cilia outside, holding her bamboo box. Milena hugged her. ‘I’m sorry about your shins,’ she said. Milena lifted the lid of the box, and saw it, the precious paper, ruled in staves. People were generous. Milena had never believed th...
She could ask for anything, she thought dizzily, anything--an end to pain or world hunger or disease, or for peace on earth. But then again, perhaps these things weren't in the power of angels to grant, or they would already have been granted. And pe...
Jennifer now understood the meaning of the cadence: the black and white drawing, the watercolor painting,and the notes. The cadence had at last developed into a concerto for violin, the instrument of gypsies, with a prevailing rhapsodic "leitmotif". ...
Quietly, Miss Alice was demonstrating this God of love and beauty too — in small ways and in large. For a few, the concept that life did not have to be all starkness and misery was slowly taking root. Tentatively, timidly – -constantly encouraged...
I worked on Mauna Kea for over five years and saw my health severely degrade during that time. The two long term summit workers that I knew well died of disease conditions, another worker went on to commit suicide, and others were argumentative.
You never get mad,” she said when their server left the table. “Except at me.” “That’s not true,” he said tightly. “Torie can get me going.” “Torie doesn’t count. You were obviously her mother in a previous life.
People only know what you tell them.And it was true.People gave out their whole life stories to anyone and everyone without a second's thought.Stand at a bus stop,sit in a strange pub,get banged up,and someone would always give you their life story.I...
I probably felt more resentment for what I personally was to suffer than for the wrong they were doing to anyone and everyone. But at that time I was determined not to put up with badly behaved people more out of my own interest than because I wanted...
The arctic pavement turned into a whirlwind of viscous blood. The fiery shadows on the metropolitan walls blitzed him, avenging overachievers starved for vengeance. He fell into the abyss. His migraine made his head feel heavier than it was. Thoughts...
I feel that the Photograph creates my body or mortifies it, according to its caprice (apology of this mortiferous power: certain Communards paid with their lives for their willingness or even their eagerness to pose on the barricades: defeated, they ...
Father never approved of my toys Saw them as child's playthings I was a child They were my world I ruled there And he stepped on them Destroying them And in turn Destroyed me I should have been left to play Now I must step on everything
Listen to me, Ember. I couldn’t hurt you. I can’t.” Hayden settled his eyes on me. They were softer than I’d ever seen. “I love you— I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you.
Your whole world ceases to exist and you're nothing but a shell of a person you once were. Your mom has dealt with it her way, me in mine, and you in yours," he said, lifting his hand off of John's gravestone and rising. "Your mom hates the world, I ...
We were in the middle of a scene, and this crazy woman comes roaring out of the crowd, screaming, grabs my whip, and damned if she didn’t punch me.” Rubbing his reddened chin, the man’s lips curved a little. “It’s almost funny, but still, s...
Just this once, in the very heart of the busiest of cities, everyone was perfectly content not to move and hardly to breathe. And for those few minutes, while the song lasted, Times Square was still as a meadow at evening, with the sun streaming in o...
Somehow the painted door now stood open. Blaise was following Livia through it, past Throgmorton's outstretched arm. Sunni shed her slippers and hurried after them, still not quite believing they were walking through what she had thought was only pai...
