Well, being a perfectionist seems okay from the outside, but a perfectionist never enjoys anything, no matter how well it goes, because nothing is ever perfect.
To bring him into such agonies as a man should never know, to deny him shrift, to tear his flesh shred from shred. And how will I ever be forgiven for such a lust as this?
This is my thought, that for every soul, something must come to pass, and for everything that does come to pass, every soul can imagine many things that might have come to pass, all of them less evil...
There were so many things Rosanna could have been besides a farm wife, she thought. But it was not a source of regret—it was a source of pride.
The plays he had liked were the one called Measure for Measure, and another one called Macbeth. They were easy to follow, and what happened in them was kind of like what happened in junior high school...
She said, Some are born bossy, some achieve bossiness, and some have bossiness thrust upon them.
She could not have created this moment, these lovely faces, these candles flickering, the flash of the silverware, the fragrances of the food hanging over the table, the heads turning this way and tha...
Linda was just born when I had my first miscarriage, and for a while, six months maybe, the sight of those two babies, whom I had loved and cared for with real interest and satisfaction, affected me l...
Hmm, What did I love? I think all the scents. Mama's lilac trees, and the wild iris in the fields, and rain on the breeze on a hot day. Apple and pear blossoms. The hay just cut. The mix of odors in t...
Eavesdropping is a habit fiction writers get into. Fiction writing will lead you into a number of socially unacceptable practices.
Compared with Iowa, Kansas City was a strange world. The Halls where she worked was in the most elegant place she’d ever been at that point, a made-up town for shopping, a Fifth Avenue on the prairie...
And of course there was no help for it, except recalling bits of conversations she had overheard from time to time about marriage. That’s what knitting groups and sewing groups were for, wasn’t it? Co...
Like a man who has jumped off a diving board, but then, through force of will, lowers himself inch by inch into the pool.
Cats swore that they had pretended to be domesticated to protect themselves—any cat who lived with a human did so under duress, and all cats escaped whenever they could.
You don't make 'em trot for one thing and run for the other.
What? he would say, practically snapping to attention. What I had thought to be of passing interest would now take on profound fascination as I read it aloud, and Pat would inhale it. A few hours or a...
So all I have is the knowledge that I saw! That I saw without being afraid and without turning away, and that I didn’t forgive the unforgivable. Forgiveness is a reflex for when you can’t stand what y...
She dressed to look good, and I dressed for obscurity.
I’ve experienced having you in the house. It’s like living with a loud motor running all the time. Up, down, into this room and that room, eating supper, jumping from the table, cursing all the time,...
It is hard to know whether an air of self-confidence precedes or follows success.