Nobody that has seen a baby born can believe in god for a second. When you see your child born, and the panic, and the amount of technology that is saving the life of the two people you love most in the world, when you see how much stainless steel an...
There are times when every act, no matter how private or unconscious, becomes political. Whom you live with, how you wear your hair, whether you marry, whether you insist that your child take piano lessons, what are the brand names on your shelf; all...
That's what I want, a mental evidence I can feel. I don't want physical evidence, proof you have to go out and drag in. I want evidence that you can carry in your mind and always touch and smell and feel. But there's no way to do that. In order to be...
In writing the short novel Fahrenheit 451 I thought I was describing a world that might evolve in four or five decades. But only a few weeks ago, in Beverly Hills one night, a husband and wife passed me, walking their dog. I stood staring after them,...
So early it's still almost dark out. I'm near the window with coffee, and the usual early morning stuff that passes for thought. When I see the boy and his friend walking up the road to deliver the newspaper. They wear caps and sweaters, and one boy ...
Michael: 'Hey, remember when I almost didn't let you into the house that first day you came?' Claire: 'Yep' Michael: 'Well, I was dead wrong. Maybe I never said that out loud before, but I mean it, Claire. All that's happened since... we wouldn't hav...
Television's perfect. You turn a few knobs, a few of those mechanical adjustments at which the higher apes are so proficient, and lean back and drain your mind of all thought. And there you are watching the bubbles in the primeval ooze. You don't hav...
The stranger was still smiling. He transformed himself into a rose bush and entwined me. My Christian education meant that ever since childhood I have had a horror of vice and it was not without a quite understandable terror that I discerned the plea...
Flowers and fruits are always fit presents; flowers, because they are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. These gay natures contrast with the somewhat stern countenance of ordinary nature: they are like mu...
The 3 types of terror: The Gross-out: the sight of a severed head tumbling down a flight of stairs, it's when the lights go out and something green and slimy splatters against your arm. The Horror: the unnatural, spiders the size of bears, the dead w...
Forse – considerò – non esistono nemmeno amici buoni o cattivi, forse ci sono solo amici, persone che prendono le tue parti quando stai male e che ti aiutano a non sentirti solo. Forse per un amico vale sempre la pena avere paura e sperare e viv...
Mother seemed happiest when making and tending home, the sewing machine whistling and the Mixmaster whirling. Her deepest impulse was to nurture, to simply dwell; it had nothing to do with ambition and achievement in the world...How had I come to bel...
Listen, I've always been a situational writer. My idea of what to do with a plot is to shoot it before it can breed. It's true that when I start a story, I usually have a general idea of where it's going to finish up, but in many cases I end up in a ...
If you write books, you go on one page at a time. We turn from all we know and all we fear. We study catalogues, watch football games, choose Sprint over AT&T. We count the birds in the sky and will not turn from the window when we hear the footsteps...
Now, it’s undeniably true that male writers (including yours truly) are generally and commercially allowed to write about “girl stuff” without being penalized for doing so. In part this is the same old shit it’s always been ... I’ve said be...
Tomorrow she’d look up tattoo removal. They were doing big things with lasers now. When Cal was just a little more stable, she’d break up with him, gently, and then she’d begin her project of helping everybody she could help, and after that she...
(fragment) Three things I turned my back to: light, the past, the trunk of an old tree. One by one each unfastened itself. To sit is to present when the roll is called. I knew that. I wore my hat of straw, fringed like fingers sifting a breeze. My ha...
I wouldn’t say “art” as much as “virtue,” in the ancient Greek sense of “andreia” – manly action – or “arete,” excellence. In my experience, Resistance kicks in any time we try to move ourselves from a lower plane to a higher. I...
It was important not to offend against the laws of magic. If a woman left you it was because you did not cast the right spell over her, or else because someone else cast a stronger enchantment than yours, or else because your marriage was cursed in s...
I saw the sunset-colored sands, The Nile like flowing fire between, Where Rameses stares forth serene, And Ammon's heavy temple stands. I saw the rocks where long ago, Above the sea that cries and breaks, Swift Perseus with Medusa's snakes Set free t...
I am charmed by the idea that there is an activity known as work and another as play, although even in grade school the distinction eluded me. I remember how full of hope I was sitting in first-period home room listening to the teacher divide up our ...
