The storm which blew me out of my past eased off.
The only way to make any sense of the United States Congress, our father told me once, is to view it as a two-hundred-year-long primate study.
Poor Elinor! Willoughby on one side, Brandon on the other. She is quite entre deux feux. Prudie had a bit of lipstick on her teeth, or else it was wine. Jocelyn wanted to lean across and wipe it off w...
If stupid were fuel, we would never run out.
I opened the door to The Graduate and slid into the din. I'd been considering telling Harlow what I'd just learned about chimp sex. Much would depend on how drunk I got.
I made tiny newspapers of ant events, stamp-sized papers at first, then a bit bigger, too big for ants, it distressed me, but I couldn’t fit the stories otherwise and I wanted real stories, not just l...
You can train any animal into any behavior on cue if it’s a natural behavior to begin with. Racism, sexism, speciesism—all natural human behaviors. They can be triggered any time by any unscrupulous y...
When a portent repeats itself three times, like something out of Julius Caesar, even Caliban, a couple of plays over, is bound to notice.
When I run the world, librarians will be exempt from tragedy. Even their smaller sorrows will last only for as long as you can take out a book. Both
What should we read next? Bernadette asked. Pride and Prejudice is my favorite.So let’s do that, Sylvia said.Are you sure, dear? Jocelyn asked,I am. It’s time. Anyway, Persuasion has the dead mother....
SO NOW IT’S 1979. Year of the Goat. The Earth Goat. Here are some things you might remember. Margaret Thatcher had just been elected prime minister. Idi Amin had fled Uganda. Jimmy Carter would soon b...
Dean coughed helpfully. Somewhere in the cough was the word persuasion. He was throwing Mo a lifeline.Mo preferred to go down. I haven’t actually read any Austen. I’m more into mysteries, crime fictio...
Besides, it was a high bed. The dogs could never have gotten into it without help. Maybe one could have stood with its front paws on the bed frame while the other scaled its back in some unlikely dach...
At five of five, I called the airline number—800-FUCK-YOU—and was told I had to speak directly to lost luggage at the Sacramento Airport. No one answered in Sacramento, though my call was important to...
Antagonism in my family comes wrapped in layers of code, sideways feints, full deniability.
Allegra's Austen wrote about the impact of financial need on the intimate lives of women. If she'd worked in a bookstore, Allegra would have shelved Austen in the horror section.
You know, I don't think there's anything truly unforgivable. Not where there's love.
Yes, it is. I’m leaving the marriage, I’m not leaving you. As long as you’re in the house, I’ll take care of the house. Fuck off, said Sylvia.
Whoever I was before is no one I ever got to know.
Whatev was the first hand sign I learned at college, but there were several popular then. There was the thumb-and-index-finger L held against the forehead, which meant Loser. The whatev W could be fli...