Story-telling is pivotal to our well-being, as are nonethnic jokes and riddles.
Still, there were moments when, against all reason, I thought I might be a genius. These moments were provoked not by any particular accomplishment but by cocaine and crystal methamphetamine — drugs t...
Something has changed, and now, when I look at my students, I see only people who are going to eat up my time.
Later that night I met a Bulgarian. In my country, you say to someone you hate, ‘May you build a house from your kidney stones.’ Well, finally, I thought.
I’m not sure how long I lay there, blissed-out and farting.
It means ‘female dog,’ I’d explained to my sisters, but it also means ‘a woman who’s crabby and won’t let you be yourself.
In the Netherlands now, I imagine it's legal to marry your own children. Get them pregnant, and you can abort your unborn grandbabies in a free clinic that used to be a church.
If she’d had it her way, we would never have known about the cancer. It was our father’s idea to tell us, and she had fought it, agreeing only when he threatened to tell us himself. Our mother worried...
If I'm walking down an American street and anyone darker than a peanut shell approaches, I'll say, Hello. This because, if I don't say it, he or she might think that I'm anxious. Which, of course, I m...
I had no job at the time and was living off the cruel joke I referred to as my savings.
I had no interest in football or basketball but had learned it was best to pretend otherwise. If a boy didn’t care for barbecued chicken or potato chips, people would accept it as a matter of personal...
For to witness majesty, to find yourself literally touched by it - isn't that what we've all been waiting for?
Everyone had taken their places, when I excused myself to visit the bathroom, and there, in the toilet, was the absolute biggest turd I have ever seen in my life - no toilet paper or anything, just th...
Drawing attention to Gretchen's weight was the sort of behavior my mother referred to as 'stirring the turd,' and I did it a lot that summer.
But songbirds are trash, the chicken said, and the guinea hen laughed, saying, Well, then, I guess we could all use a little more trash in our lives.
Boston's That is good is Berlin's Das ist gut. It's an excellent way to start and leaves the listener thinking, 'Hey, Ich kann do dis.' :D
A person doesn't consciously choose what he focuses on. Those things choose you, and, once they do, nothing, it seems, can shake them.
The beauty of an art school: as long as you can pay the tuition, they will never, even in the gentlest way, suggest that you have no talent.
You’re afraid of moths? He nodded yes and winced a little. But nobody’s afraid of moths. I am, he whispered, and he looked behind us, as if afraid that one might be listening.
You kids might think you’re close, but just wait until your father and I are gone, and you’re left to divide up our property.