During those snowy New England winters, besides learning to rise at five to study calculus and trudge two miles through the drifts for breakfast down the road, he had suppressed some tremendous element in himself that took form in a prudish virginity...
She jotted down the order, then forced herself to meet his gaze. "It's going to be a bit of a wait, we're short-staffed this morning." The following words rushed out of her. "And breakfast's on me." "Normally, I wouldn't protest," he said, leaning cl...
I am Envy, begotten of a chimney-sweeper and an oyster-wife. I cannot read, and therefore wish all books were burnt; I am lean with seeing others eat - O that there would come a famine through all the world, that all might die, and I live alone; then...
Today the average lifetime is over seventy years, long enough for a great number of accomplishments. But this development has occurred within the present century. Before that, people tended to die much younger than they do today, and among those earl...
In my world, people are plotting. You have no idea of all the people in business commit every day. Like it was nothing. Or there’s a set of special rules for them. Remember when Bush made that whole speech about ‘corporate ethics’ last year? Wh...
It is so rare to find someone of true understanding; for the most part they judge purely by their own standards and ignore everyone else. So all they see of me is a façade. There are times when I am forced to sit with them and on such occasions I si...
The time for equivocation has passed. You can stop this at any point by telling me we will rule the court apart from a distance, but until you do so"-he let liquid sunlight drip onto her skin-"I'm playing for keeps. I'm not a mortal, Aislinn. I'm the...
When Mr. William Faraday sat down to write his memoirs after fifty-eight years of blameless inactivity he found the work of inscribing the history of his life almost as tedious as living it had been, and so, possessing a natural invention coupled wit...
It was not till I experimented with seeds plucked straight from a growing plant that I had my first success...the first thrill of creation...the first taste of blood. This, surely, must be akin to the pride of paternity...indeed, many soured bachelor...
He curled up, twitching and spasming, the pain stormtrooping through his entire body in agonizing, dizzying, pounding waves. He vomited, but it wasn’t the contents of his stomach. It his stomach, hanging inside-out from a slimy loop of esophagus, s...
You think it's all rather too "New Age" to be taken seriously, eh?' 'Not at all.' 'But it's an ancient discipline...' 'New Age disciplines invariably are,' Beede said, disparagingly, 'but in the modern world they lack context - we just pick them up a...
It began with a perfect plan. Shape-wise we had a circle, a simple uncomplicated curve to guide us comfortably from one thing to another, an easy predictable ride promising a natural progression from A to B, C and D, and so on until we reached our de...
He was pierced and scourged and mocked. He was cursed and raised up on a tree, but He was in that ancient pose of victory. An old man on a hill, a blind man between two pillars, the God Man on a cross. Glory is sacrifice, glory is exhaustion, glory i...
The upscale neighborhoods in Blue Sky Hill weren't all lily white anymore, but you could be sure their kids didn't wear our kind of clothes, or get free lunches at the Summer Kitchen, or pick up used books and magazines down at the Book Basket store,...
Her eyes traveled down the black T-shirt he wore. Pfft, he might as well be naked. It clung to him like a second skin giving her a clear view of lean, hard muscles. She licked her lips. Gods, what it would feel like to be his T-shirt. She was positiv...
Your perception is riveting, Amal," he says in a bored and sarcastic tone, dropping the note down on my desk. "It's comforting to know that there are people in my class who have the maturity and intelligence to make derogatory comments about other pe...
A dangerous glint came into his eyes. "Gabi, if I ever show up in your bedroom in the middle of the nigh, believe me, it won't be to give you a morality lesson." She felt the promise of that through her body down to her toes. But she said, "If anyone...
Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the Universe or be crushed by it. You must...
I wanted the past to go away, I wanted to leave it, like another country; I wanted my life to close, and open like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song where it falls down over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery; I wanted to hurry into t...
But Amy Pond. Oh! The Sea had briefly been able to touch her mind — it knew that the Doctor was the most important thing in the world to her, and it had given a copy of him to her. If they spent enough time together, the copy would become every bit...
Aidan from the past: He took her hands in his bloodied, callused ones. “Accept me?” His eyes glowed, his lashes spiked from rain. Declan in the present: He gripped her nape. “I fuckin love you, Regin!” Rain spiked his lashes as he gazed down ...
