Our life is like a land journey, too even and easy and dull over long distances across the plains, too hard and painful up the steep grades; but, on the summits of the mountain, you have a magnificent view--and feel exalted--and your eyes are full of...
We want to get there faster. Get where? Wherever we are not. But a human soul can only go as fast as a man can walk, they used to say. In that case, where are all the souls? Left behind. They wander here and there, slowly, dim lights flickering in th...
Now he realized the truth: that sacrifice was no purchase of freedom. It was like a great elective office, it was like an inheritance of power - to certain people at certain times an essential luxury, carrying with it not a guarantee but a responsibi...
Something be done about the food.” Seeing his speculative glance Clare laid down her fork and gave him a warning scowl. “Yes, I’m a good cook, but I will not have time to work in the kitchen. And don’t try to convince me that a mistress also ...
We’re not so different, you and I. Sure, we may have different religious beliefs, political outlooks, sexual orientations, economic viewpoints, and artistic/literary/culinary tastes, but deep down we both want the same thing: To be loved by a beaut...
That was one other time when my whole body reacted to the fear and went out of my own control. My nerves came apart completely, and I started vomiting and vomiting. I couldn't stop. It had been such a narrow escape. I kept telling myself that I could...
He turned to her - his gesture a superb compound of relief, remorse, passionate candour and bewilderment touched with curiosity; confidence and perfect penitence. Against which Scylla had to brace herself. Against such bravura how dull truth seemed, ...
Then come to realize that you're making mountains out of molehills. Realize how petty you've become. Sure, it may feel like you can't get a grip on this town. It may seem that every time someone offers you a hand up, they just let go and you slip fur...
It does no good to run. And it does no good to hide. But I know what it's like. Your brain shuts down, and you follow your instincts. Or, at least, you you do. But you know what you're really doing? When you flee through the night, or crawl into your...
Rationality or consciousness is itself a ratio or proportion among the sensuous components of experience, and is not something added to such sense experience. Subrational beings have no means of achieving such a ratio or proportion in their sense liv...
It took Feyra some time to realise that she was not delirious: the citizens were wearing painted masks.From childhood she had heard the legend that the Venetians were half human, half beast.She knew that this could not be true, but in the swirling fo...
he began to feel that she was very lonely indeed. “If he’d been here,” she said, “those cowards would never have dared to insult me.” She thought about “him” with great sadness and perhaps longing--about his honest, stupid, constant kin...
I didn't look over my shoulder; there wasn't a sound behind me on the pavement, but I knew he was coming slowly after me. The crawl of the skin up and down my back told me. Little needles of warning that gathered at the back of my skull told me. I'd ...
No. This would be better as a team." She dragged her top drawer open, rooted out her aspirin. "I should have fired her weeks ago. You were right about that. I was wrong." "I need to write this down. Can I borrow a pencil?" "Shut up." Grateful that hi...
She couldn't stop thinking about Elias. His hands caressing her feet, his arms around her body, his fingers entangled in her hair--he was so warm. It wasn't only the temperature, it was some deep connection that ran down to her soul, his touch mollif...
His punch knocked her back a meter into the wall. His fist had moved of his own volition, carrying a rage and frustration all its own. To his dismay, she didn’t fall. People so small as her always fell. No tears pooled in her eyes; instead they fla...
A bit of theory as we settle down for lunch: the waiter's treatment of Kitty is actually a kind of sandwich, with the bottom bread being the bored and slightly effete way he normally acts with customers, the middle being the crazed and abnormal way h...
So if you care to find me/ Look to the western sky/ As someone told me lately/ Everyone deserves the chance to fly!/ And if I'm flying solo/ At least I'm flying free/ Tell those who'd ground me/ Take a message back from me/ Tell them how I am defying...
It's a theme born out of the Christian faith rather than a pagan understanding of the universe. Both views agree that we human beings are small, frail, and limited in our ability to battle the forces of the world that seek to destroy us. In response,...
Almost everyone can remember losing his or her virginity, and most writers can remember the first book he/she put down thinking: I can do better than this. Hell, I am doing better than this! What could be more encouraging to the struggling writer tha...
Men," said Mr. Kyle, "people have been trying to understand dogs ever since the beginning of time. One never knows what they'll do. You can read every day where a dog saved the life of a drowning child, or lay down his life for his master. Some peopl...
