Certainly I would be less frightened of death (not just my own death but Welty's death, Andy's death, Death in general) if I thought a familiar person came to meet us at the door, because — writing th...
But the moon was so large and clear through the uncurtained window that it made me think instead of a story my mother had told me, about driving to horse shows with her mother and father in the back s...
But how, said Charles, who was close to tears, how can you possibly justify cold-blooded murder?’ Henry lit a cigarette. I prefer to think of it, he had said, as redistribution of matter.
But Robin: their dear little Robs. More than ten years later, his death remained an agony; there was no glossing any detail; its horror was not subject to repair or permutation by any of the narrative...
Bunny put away his copy of The Bride of Fu Manchu and started carrying around a volume of Homer instead.
Boris shrugged. Who cares? If he is good to you? None of us ever find enough kindness in the world, do we?
Because: if our secrets define us, as opposed to the face we show the world: then the painting was the secret that raised me above the surface of life and enabled me to know who I am. And it's there:...
Because--isn't it drilled into us constantly, from childhood on, an unquestioned platitude in the culture--? From William Blake to Lady Gaga, from Rousseau to Rumi to Tosca to Mister Rogers, it's a cu...
Because, here’s the truth: life is catastrophe. The basic fact of existence—of walking around trying to feed ourselves and find friends and whatever else we do—is catastrophe.
Because, here’s the truth: life is catastrophe. The basic fact of existence—of walking around trying to feed ourselves and find friends and whatever else we do—is catastrophe. Forget all this ridiculo...
Because I don’t care what anyone says or how often or winningly they say it: no one will ever, ever be able to persuade me that life is some awesome, rewarding treat.
Be still, O little one, for I am Death. Another cobra had said that, in something else by Kipling. The cobras in his stories were heartless but they spoke beautifully, like wicked kings in the Old Tes...
As long as I am acting out of love, I feel I am doing best I know how.
As is true of most incipient bad things in life, i had not really prepared myself for this possibility.
Angrily, I concentrated on her flaws, willfully studying the photographs that caught her at awkward ages and less flattering angles - long nose, thin cheeks, her eyes (despite their heartbreaking colo...
And as much as I’d like to believe there’s a truth beyond illusion, I’ve come to believe that there’s no truth beyond illusion. Because, between ‘reality’ on the one hand, and the point where the mind...
Also they have rattlesnakes, and the death penalty, which I think is primitive and unethical
All my life, people have taken my shyness for sullenness, snobbery, bad temper of one sort or another.
After class, I wandered downstairs in a dream, my head spinning, but acutely, achingly conscious that I was alive and young on a beautiful day
Adrift in an air of charged significance, doubt struck me: was it a real memory, had he really spoken those words to me, or was I dreaming?