Imagine that human existence is defined by an Ache: the Ache of our not being, each of us, the center of the universe; of our desires forever outnumbering our means of satisfying them. If we see relig...
If I were fashioning my own killer argument against the digital revolution, I’d begin with the observation that both Newt Gingrich and Timothy Leary are crazy about it.
I'm saying the structure and f the entire culture is flawed, chip said. I'm saying the bureaucracy has arrogated the right to define certain states of mind as 'diseased.' A lack of desire to spend mon...
He couldn't figure out if she was immensely well adjusted or seriously messed up.
He ate arugula (rocket, the old farmers called it) so strong it made his eyes water, like a paragraph of Thoreau.
God damn you! Alfred said. You belong in jail! The turd wheezed with laughter as it slid very slowly down the wall, its viscous pseudopods threatening to drip on the sheets below. Seems to me, it said...
For every reader who dies today, a viewer is born, and we seem to be witnessing . . . the final tipping balance.
Charles was at the apex of his career, coming off a Lannan Fellowship year and a front-page Times review that had anointed him as the heir of John Barth and Stanley Elkin, but he didn’t know it was th...
Every good writer I know needs to go into some deep, quiet place to do work that is fully imagined. And what the Internet brings is lots of vulgar data. It is the antithesis of the imagination. It lea...
Не мислеше, че е станала алкохоличка. Не беше алкохоличка. Просто заприличваше на баща си, който понякога търсеше спасение от близките си в чашката. Навремето Уолтър нямаше нищо против, че тя изпива с...
В първите шумове на започване на работа сутрин се крие опасна тъга, сякаш тишината я боли, задето е била обезпокоена. Първият миг от работния ден напомня за всички останали мигове, от които се състои...
She was so much a personality and so little anything else that even staring straight at her he had no idea what she really looked like.
Whatever else happened, she wanted a dog in her life.
The simple fact of the matter is that trying to be perfectly likable is incompatible with loving relationships. Sooner or later, for example, you’re going to find yourself in a hideous, screaming figh...
The interesting people are always immoderate.
The human species was given dominion over the earth and took the opportunity to exterminate other species and warm the atmosphere and generally ruin things in its own image, but it paid this price for...
The conservatives won. They turned the Democrats into a center-right party. They got the entire country singing 'God Bless America,' stress on God, at every single major-league baseball game. They won...
That was the way most people were - stupid.
Sounded to me like he had a pretty good idea what he was saying, Van replied, with surprisingly little anger. It's a pity he had to overintellectualize like that. He did such good work, and then he ha...
Silence, however, is a useful statement only if someone, somewhere, expects your voice to be loud.