How Are We to Live is a collection of short stories, not a novel. This in itself is a disappointment. It seems to diminish the book’s authority, making the author seem like somebody who is just hangin...
Children of course are monstrously conventional, repelled at once by whatever is off-center, out of whack, unmanageable. And being an only child I had been coddled a good deal (also scolded). I was aw...
I got interested in reading very early, because a story was read to me, by Hans Christian Andersen, which was 'The Little Mermaid,' and I don't know if you remember 'The Little Mermaid,' but it's drea...
يكي دوبار كارلا يكدفعه شروع كرده بود به حرف زدن و كار خيلي احمقانه اي كرده بود، فقط براي آنكه فضا را عوض كند. از آن كارهايي كه كه وقتي سواركارهاي دست و پاچلفتي و وحشتزده تازه كار احساس حقارت مي كردند،...
Who can ever say the perfect thing to the poet about his poetry?
I was not really surprised by what he was saying. A lot of people felt that way. Especially men. There was a quantity of things that men hated. Or had no use for, as they said. And that was exactly ri...
He seemed happy. She thought that she seldom concerned herself about Laurence’s being happy. She wanted him to be in a good mood, so that everything would go smoothly, but that was not the same thing.
Chronic means that it will be permanent but perhaps not constant.
I don't think that much about my relationship with my mother and what it did to me. I sometimes feel terrible regret about her, what her life must have been like. Often, when I'm enjoying something, I...
Time is something that interests me a whole lot - past and present, and how the past appears as people change.
If you live long enough as a parent nowadays, you discover that you have made mistakes you didn't bother to know about along with the ones you do know about all too well. You are somewhat humbled at h...
قالت إيزابيل (حسنًا، مال الذي كان بإمكانه فعله أكثر من ذلك, أن يصلي من أجلها؟)
These are not sentimental keepsakes. She never looks at them, and often forgets what she has there. They are not booty, they don't have ritualistic significance. She does not take something every time...
The images, the language, of pornography, and romance are alike; monotonous and mechanically seductive, quickly leading to despair.
I gave him a gentle uncomprehending look in return. I am a grown-up woman now; let him unbury his own catastrophes.
For what was living with a man if it wasn't living inside his insanity?
Aunt Elspeth and Auntie Grace stood in their doorway, ceremoniously, to watch me go, and I felt as if I were a ship with their hope on it, dropping down over the horizon.
Moments of kindness and reconciliation are worth having, even if the parting has to come sooner or later.
I was happy in the library. Walls of printed pages, evidence of so many created worlds--this was a comfort to me.
براي همين حالا دارم راه و روشم را عوض مي كنم و دستكم فعلا خداحافظ دفتر خاطرات. هميشه احساس مي كردم ماجراي واقعاعجيب و غريب در زندگي ام اتفاق مي افتد، و خيلي مهم است كه همه چيز را ثبت كرده باشم. يعني ا...