Lissa and I had been best friends ever since kindergarden, when our teacher had paired us together for writing lessons. Forcing five-year-olds to spell "Vasilisa Dragomir" and "Rosemarie Hathaway" was beyond cruel and we'd -or rather, I'd- responded ...
Okay? ?" People in the hall stared at us. I realized I was practically shouting. "He's out of his mind. I thought we decided you weren't going to see him anymore.” "You decided, Rose. Not me." There was an edge in her voice I hadn't heard in a whil...
That's all my grandfather was guilty of, fear, faith in his words, but that was a high crime in her eyes. That's all Jack was guilty of that day, but I've lived with him a good while and I believe I understand him. Sometimes it might take an afternoo...
Summer has weeks left, but once the calendar displays the word “September,” you’d think it was Latin for “evacuate.” I pity them for missing the best weather and the most energized time of year…It’s an extremely impressive display of li...
In Shanghai, there were several pro-right circles of former officers. They realized that the Great War and European revolutions were a direct consequence of rotten liberalism. Words like order, family, discipline and duty didn't mean anything anymore...
There is a muse, but he’s not going to come fluttering down into your writing room and scatter creative fairy-dust all over your typewriter or computer station. He lives in the ground. He’s a basement guy. You have to descend to his level, and on...
He told himself a story. Not at first. At first, there wasn’t time for thoughts that came in the shape of words. His head was blessedly empty of stories then. War was coming. It was upon him. Arin had been born in the year of the god of death, and ...
I don't want the words to be naked the way they are in faxes or in the computer. I want them to be covered by an envelope that you have to rip open in order to get at. I want there to be a waiting time -a pause between the writing and the reading. I ...
Kids are naturally curious about the world around them. Everything is fascinating and holds their attention as they explore their new surroundings. Adults however, have grown up hearing the word ‘no’, ‘don't do that,’ and ‘quit daydreaming ...
I believe in fiction and the power of stories because that way we speak in tongues. We are not silenced. All of us, when in deep trauma, find we hesitate, we stammer; there are long pauses in our speech. The thing is stuck. We get our language back t...
I’ll admit, Jasnah, that I empathize with your skepticism, but I don’t agree with it. I just think you've been looking for God in the wrong places.” “I suppose that you’re going to tell me where you think I look.” “You’ll find God in ...
I wanted to scream as I stood there, my toes hanging over the edge of the dock. I wanted to let a gut-wrenching howl rip from my disfigured throat toward those clouded skies. I wanted to say every swear word my mother had ever taught me not to say. I...
This self now as I leant over the gate looking down over fields rolling in waves of colour beneath me made no answer. He threw up no opposition. He attempted no phrase. His fist did not form. I waited. I listened. Nothing came, nothing. I cried then ...
A better man wouldn’t play this ‘sweethearts’ game with her when he knew very well it couldn’t lead to more. But he wasn’t a better man. He was Colin Sandhurst, reckless, incorrigible rogue—and damn it, he couldn’t resist. He wanted to ...
I had a dream about you. You were a wholesale hole salesman, and I was a wholesale half salesman. I told you a half a hole is the same as a whole hole, and you said the pricing isn’t the same. I agreed and I disagreed, and I tried telling you this,...
I have seen many die, surrounded by loved ones, and their last words were ‘I love you.’ There were some who could no longer speak yet with their eyes and soft smile left behind that same healing message. I have been in rooms where those who were ...
we are burning like a chicken wing left on the grill of an outdoor barbecue we are unwanted and burning we are burning and unwanted we are an unwanted burning as we sizzle and fry to the bone the coals of Dante's 'Inferno' spit and sputter beneath us...
Even there in the midst of my belief that there was nothing worth salvaging, I could feel the truth of his words. Our circus act, begun at the Biltmore Hotel four years earlier, had mostly been a success. To admit as much, though, would be to undermi...
The world' is man's experience as it appears to, and is moulded by, his ego. It is that less abundant life, which is lived according to the dictates of the insulated self. It is nature denatured by the distorting spectacles of our appetites and revul...
In science fiction, telepaths often communicate across language barriers, since thoughts are considered to be universal. However, this might not be true. Emotions and feelings may well be nonverbal and universal, so that one could telepathically send...
But this first clumsy attempt showed her that the imagination itself was a source of secrets: once she had begun a story, no one could be told. Pretending in words was too tentative, too vulnerable, too embarrassing to let anyone know. Even writing o...
