ROSA MET ME at the door with a shotgun. Strictly speaking, not aimed at me, but you don’t really have to aim a sawed-off shotgun. She swung it toward me. “You, get in there.” She turned her attention to the crowd. “The rest of you will take a...
To be certain you're consuming the real deal, look carefully at the label. W-h-i-s-k-e-y indicates the heavenly liquid from the Emerald Isle. Without the "e," it's from Scotland or some other godforsaken place.
Despite a few exceptions, I have found that Americans are now far more willing to learn new names, just as they're far more willing to try new ethnic foods... It's like adding a few new spices to the kitchen pantry.
Sorry, I said to myself, wondering how many times in my marriage I'd said that, how many times I'd meant it, how many times Claire had actually believed it, and, most important, how many times the utterance had any impact whatsoever on our dispute. W...
But those were Frenchmen and you can work out military problems clearly when you are fighting in somebody else's country." "Yes," I replied, "when it is your own country you can not use it so scientifically." "The Russians did, to trap Napoleon." "Ye...
I made up three lists: Candidate's Accomplishments (real and imaginary), Accusations Against Opponent (including rumours, allegations, innuendos, and lies), and Empty Promises (the more improbable, the better). Then it was merely a matter of taking v...
Top Gun,” I whispered to Lindsey. We’d started pointing out Luc’s ubiquitous pop culture references, having decided that because he cut his fangs in the Wild West, he’d been entranced by movies and television. You know, because living in a so...
When the love-led man had ceased from his labours Bathsheba came and looked him in the face. 'Gabriel, will you you stay on with me?' she said, smiling winningly, and not troubling to bring her lips quite together again at the end, because there was ...
They need to practice harder," he said. 'If they're really going to do this, they need to work harder.' 'They will," I assured him. 'But they got better, right?' Baz laughed. 'Are you going to stand in front of them during their gigs too? If so, make...
Maybe that would be a good thing to do. He wasn't entirely sure, and that bothered him more than anything. How was he meant to judge right from wrong when he had never really striven to do right before? The only good thing he had known was his time w...
Must you know that yours will be the “better” picture before you pick up the brush and paint? Can it not simply be another picture? Another expression of beauty? Must a rose be “better” than an iris in order to justify it’s existence? I tel...
The image of him shifted with the violent frenzy of leaves. He was there and he wasn’t, as the leaves whipped and the lightning fell away in a slow strobe effect across the expanse of sky. How he had gotten up there, I had no idea, but he had been ...
I'm gonna kill him," Eve said, or at least that was what it sounded like filtered through the pillow. Stake him right in the heart, shove garlic up his ass, and-and-" And what?" (Michael) When did you get home?" Claire demanded. Apparently just in ti...
When she set Shane’s glass of Coke down in front of him, she did it with probably a little too much emphasis; he glanced up at her with a question-mark expression.[...] ‘‘What?’’ Shane asked her, and took a drink. ‘‘Did I forget to say ...
Bishop was all done with the witty converstaion. 'Will you swear?' And Myrnin said, shockingly, 'I will.' And he proceeded to, a string of swearwords that made Claire blink. He ended with, '—frothy fool-born apple-john! Cheater of vandals and defil...
My association of jail to high school is probably on the basic similarity of a communicable social-setting. These few settings represent a frame of reference: a somewhat fraternal order (though I never belonged to an actual fraternity) where people c...
People assume when you're swimming in a river you are supposed to know which way you are going, and I guess some of the time that is true, but there are certain currents that are very strong, and it's when we are in those currents we need somebody to...
...I thought, with a certain amount of sorrow, how much enormous talent there must be in the world for nature simply to toss it away so arbitrarily! But nature could not care less what we think about it, and as far as talent is concerned, there is su...
I was crazy in love with you in high school, and you broke my heart the day you hooked up with someone else our sophomore year. Then you broke it again when you promised me you’d dump him the night we kissed and go out with me instead, because the ...
Sacrfice," the captain said. "You made one. I made one. We all made them. But you were angry over yours. You kept thinking about what you lost. You didn't get it. Sacrifice is a part of life. It's supposed to be. It's not something to regret. It's so...
My hands tightened on her, and I again tried to memorize every part of this moment. There was such perfection in the way our bodies were wrapped together. It didn’t seem possible that outside the sanctity of this moonlit car was a world we had to h...
