I know I want to marry you. But I wish we were the first to ever get married. I cannot help feeling that the institution has been somewhat corrupted and corroded by the misuse of others. We could show them, by a beyootiful and myoochooal respect for ...
Speaking of shabby looks, we're going to have to give you a haircut soon. ...WHAT? These feathers are getting messy. LET ME UNDERSTAND THIS CORRECTLY. YOU WISH TO CUT MY MANE? Thunder tigers grow manes? OF COURSE! HOW ELSE WOULD YOU TELL MALES FROM F...
There will always be wars," Maggie told him. "Yes," Reeve replied. "But there will also be brothers, sisters, comrades and lovers as well, and they are who we fight for. Our comrades--our brothers--beside us on the field; our wives and families at ho...
Later on, still looking, she had tried to get involved with the Women's Community Center. She liked what they stood for but secretly wished they would wear just a little lipstick and shave their legs. She had been the only one in the room in full mak...
Fire supposed he needed to be there in order to give rousing speeches and lead the charge into the fray, or whatever is was commanders did in wartime. She resented his competence at something so tragic and senseless. She wished he, or somebody, would...
Hector wished suddenly that leaving the circus was as easy as joining. He didn't fancy the ghost of Harvey Burfoot hunting him down and passing judgement on him. Troupe mythology varied on the details – some said he had the ability to stop your hea...
My thoughts are free to roam back to the way she leaned her head on my arm for a split second, as if wishing she could let herself go, let herself lean farther. But she didn't, and I can’t help but respect her for that, even I know her strength is ...
In life, people tend to wait for good things to come to them. And by waiting, they miss out. Usually, what you wish for doesn't fall in your lap; it falls somewhere nearby, and you have to recognize it, stand up, and put in the time and work it takes...
What I am in search of is not so much the gratification of a curiosity or a passion for worldly life, but something far less conditional. I do not wish to go out into the world with an insurance policy in my pocket guaranteeing my return in the event...
Books are a bad family - there are those you love, and those you are indifferent to; idiots and mad cousins who you would banish except others enjoy their company; wrongheaded but fascinating eccentrics and dreamy geniuses; orphaned grandchildren; an...
Those intricate curves and patterns your people create are beyond human eyes and hands to make. Perhaps we wished to avoid a poor imitation that would only have been an ever-present reminder to us of what we had lost. There is a different beauty in s...
. . .the most important philosophical question we can each ask ourselves is, ‘Do I or do I not wish to commit suicide?’ If we say, ‘No I do not,’ as most of us would, it is because we have reasons for living, or at the very least real hope th...
I wish I could leave you certain of the images in my mind, because they are so beautiful that I hate to think they will be extinguished when I am. Well, but again, this life has its own mortal loveliness. And memory is not strictly mortal in its natu...
It was so kind of you to write to me about your experiences during the Occupation. At the war's end, I, too, promised myself that I had done with talking about it. I had talked and lived war for six years, and I was longing to pay attention to someth...
It'll be no use their putting their heads down and saying "Come up again, dear!" I shall only look up and say "Who am I then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I'll come up: if not, I'll stay down here till I'm somebody else"...
...Oh God. I'm one of those girls." "What girls?" he asked, perplexed. " girls. The ones in all those books and TV shows. Some dumb high school girl falls in love with some supernatural guy, and he's all, 'Behold, I am five million years old!' and sh...
Some readers may realize that this story, first published in 1956, has been overtaken by events. In 1965, astronomers discovered that Mercury does not keep one side always to the Sun, but has a period of rotation of about fifty-four days, so that all...
One of the first signs of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die. This life appears unbearable, another unattainable. One is no longer ashamed of wanting to die; one asks to be moved from the old cell, which one hates, to a new one, which ...
The wind god Favonius had warned him in Croatia: If you let your anger rule you … your fate will be even sadder than mine. But how could his fate be anything but sad? Even if he lived through this quest, he would have to leave both camps forever. T...
I wish I could say he was a French professor, a French chef, or even a bilingual tutor, but I can’t. He worked in a factory and spent his summer evenings at a reenactment village as a blacksmith or something equally masculine. But it didn’t reall...
The store of fairy tales, that blue chamber where stories lie waiting to be rediscovered, holds out the promise of just those creative enchantments, not only for its own characters caught in its own plotlines; it offers magical metamorphoses to the o...
