In New York, everything reminded me of my mother—every taxi, every street corner, every cloud that passed over the sun—but out in this hot mineral emptiness, it was as if she had never existed; I coul...
In America, the rich man tries to pretend that the poor man is his equal in every respect but money, which is simply not true.
I was so haunted and stirred even by her plainness suggested – ominously – a love more binding than physical affection, some tar-pit of the soul where I might flop around and malinger for years.
I think about it quite a bit, actually, that look on his face. I think about a lot of things. I think about the first time I ever saw a birch tree; about the last time I saw Julian; about the first se...
I loved her every minute of every day, heart and mind and soul and all of it, and it was getting late and I wanted the place never to close, never.
I felt disincarnate, cut loose from myself. How it would feel to be back in my body again I couldn’t imagine.
I feel I have something very serious and urgent to say to you, my non-existent reader, and I feel I should say it as urgently as if I were standing in the room with you. That life—whatever else it is—...
I don't know where to begin. He paused, and took a drink. Do you remember last fall, in Julian's class, when we studied what Plato calls telestic madness? Bakcheia? Dionysiac frenzy? Yes,I said rather...
I am not unused to being confronted with my ow lies, but those of others never fail to throw me for a loop.
How Robin would have loved this!’ the aunts used to say fondly. 'How Robin would have laughed!’ In truth, Robin had been a giddy, fickle child - somber at odd moments, practically hysterical at others...
Her eyes--lined with black makeup--stared blankly at the ceiling; and her tan was obviously sprayed on since her skin had a healthy apricot glow even though the top of her head was missing.
Hely’s feelings didn’t run very deep; he lived in sunny shallows where it was always warm and bright.
He was the kind of man people liked to entrust with their sadnesses.
He did touch people's lives, the lives of strangers, in an entirely unanticipated way. It was they who really mourned him - or what they thought was him - with a grief that was no less sharp for not b...
Flapping crows. Shiny beetles crawling in the undergrowth. A patch of sky, frozen in a cloudy retina, reflected in a puddle on the ground. Yoo-hoo. Being and nothingness.
Every shrink, every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: Be yourself. Follow your heart.
Even the adorable drag in her step (like the little mermaid, too fragile to walk on land) drove me crazy. She was the golden thread running through everything, a lens that magnified beauty so that the...
Even on the highest levels it was smoke and mirrors; everyone was furnishing a stage set.
Even more terrible, as we grow older, to learn that no person, no matter how beloved, can ever truly understand us.
Even if life is great--keep it to yourself. You don't want to tempt the devil.