They were the supreme representatives of the Catalan nation, acting as spokesmen for it in any conflict with the Crown, and seeing that the laws or ‘constitutions’ of the Principality were observed to the letter; and at times they were, in all bu...
I had a dream about you. You were naked and frightened. We were in the belly of the beast, and I was dressed like a football mascot, so that’s why we were eaten.
Were we all like that? Were we all trying to change how we looked on the outside to match how we felt on the inside? Were we all trying to change how people saw us?
There were people who lied for gain, people who lied from pain, people who lied simply because the concept of telling the truth was utterly alien to them . . . and then there were people who lied because they were waiting for it to be time to tell th...
There were dragons, in his dreams, as though some part of him knew the trials were not yet over, that there were battles yet to be fought. He slept fitfully, fidgeting, tossing and turning, groaning and crying out in his sleep.
WHEN AUGUSTUS CAME OUT on the porch the blue pigs were eating a rattlesnake—not a very big one. It had probably just been crawling around looking for shade when it ran into the pigs. They were having a fine tug-of-war with it, and its rattling days...
Good words were the difference between Emily eating well and not. And what she had found worked best were not facts or arguments but words that tickled people’s brains for some reason, that just amused them. Puns, and exaggerations, and things that...
If this were so; if the desert were 'home'; if our instincts were forged in the desert; to survive the rigours of the desert - then it is easier to understand why greener pastures pall on us; why possessions exhaust us, and why Pascal's imaginary man...
The stove, she knew, wished it were a volcano, the humble teaspoons wished they were steamshovels, and the sink wished it were a well so all the others could have their wishes. Yet they all stayed exactly the same no matter what they wished, no matte...
They looked at me, and were so full of delight in the pleasure they were giving me that some final thread of resistance gave way and I understood not only how entirely generous they were but also that generosity might be the greatest pleasure there i...
Children were vehicles for passing things along. These things could be kingdoms, rich wedding gifts, stories, grudges, blood feuds. Through children, alliances were forged; through children, wrongs were avenged. To have a child was to set loose a for...
I prefer long-distance relationships. If we were dating, would you be offended if I asked you to stand back a few feet?
Love lets us ride on its back as if it were a camel. But you’ve got to water it, or it won’t grow into a healthy rose bush.
No matter how much water a sink takes on, it never lives up to its name. The Titanic would never have sunk if it were made out of a sink.
I had a dream about you. You were 1882, and I was 1982. You said you were older, and I replied that I was taller. Still, for being a midget, you were pretty good at basketball.
I got into a conversation with EMI, and they said they were very interested in releasing the song because it was such a huge hit online. RCA and Universal were also very interested, but EMI were the best team, so I decided to sign with them. I got my...
Her voice sounded much cooler than she felt. Inside, her internal organs were grinding themselves into nervous pulp. Her intestines were gone. Her kidneys were disintegrating. Her stomach was wringing itself out, yanking on her trachea.
In the 1960s, you could eat anything you wanted, and of course, people were smoking cigarettes and all kinds of things, and there was no talk about fat and anything like that, and butter and cream were rife. Those were lovely days for gastronomy, I m...
Our morality is based on so many factors: of where we were born, who we were born to, what values were instilled in us, what values we chose, the way that our lives have shaped us. That dictates so much of what we assume is our morality, and also the...
When Google went into China, there were some people who said they shouldn't compromise at all - that it is very bad for human rights to do so. But there were other people, particularly Chinese people, who said they were glad Google had gone in.
I went to a British Council event a while back and there were lots of German professors of literature. About half of them were convinced I had a German sense of humour and the other half were sure it was British. They are probably still arguing about...
