Worse: the thought of returning to any kind of normal routine seemed disloyal, wrong. It kept being a shock every time I remembered it, a fresh slap: she was gone. Every new event—everything I did for...
Worry! What a waste of time. All the holy books were right. Clearly ‘worry’ was the mark of a primitive and spiritually unevolved person. What was that line from Yeats, about the bemused Chinese sages...
Why, I thought sadly, as he returned with his topcoat over his arm, why hadn’t my mother married someone like him—? Or Mr. Bracegirdle? somebody she actually had something in common with—older maybe b...
Why does that obstinate little voice in our heads torment us so? Could it be because it reminds us that we are alive, of our mortality, of our individual souls – which, after all, we are too afraid to...
Why did I obsess over people like this? Was it normal to fixate on strangers in this particular vivid, fevered way? I didn’t think so. It was impossible to imagine some random passer-by on the street...
Who cares? If he is good to you? None of us ever find enough kindness in the world, do we?
White noise, impersonal roar. Deadening incandescence of the boarding terminals. But even these soul-free, sealed-off places are drenched with meaning, spangled and thundering with it. Sky Mall. Porta...
White Sky. Trees fading at the skyline, the mountains gone. My hands dangled from the cuffs of my jacket as if they weren’t my own. I never got used to the way the horizon there could just erase itsel...
When you're worried about something,' said Henry abruptly, 'have you ever tried thinking in a different language?
What you want to live and be happy in the world is a woman who has her own life and lets you have yours.
What you want is to live and be happy in the world is a woman (or man) who has her (his) own life and lets you have yours
Well, you know what Julian would say,’ said Francis. ‘There are such things as ghosts. People everywhere have always known that. And we believe in them every bit as much as Homer did. Only now, we cal...
Well, is true. I did know. Because if possible to paint fakes that look like that? Las Vegas would be the most beautiful city in the history of earth!
Well, I’ve already got ten thousand set aside. That’s a good start. If you think about it when we get home, give me your Social and next time I drop by the bank, I’ll open an account in your name, oka...
Wedding Obergruppenführer
We think we have many desires, but in fact we have only one. What is it?’
We looked at each other. And it occurred to me that despite his faults, which were numerous and spectacular, the reason I’d liked Boris and felt happy around him from almost the moment I’d met him was...
We looked at each other and just laughed; everything was hysterically funny, even the playground slide was smiling at us, and at some point, deep in the night, when we were swinging on the jungle gym...
We have art in order not to die from the truth. — NIETZSCHE
Walking into the library, I took in my breath sharply and stopped: glass fronted bookcases and Gothic panels, stretching fifteen feet to a frescoed and plaster-medallioned ceiling. In the back of the...