Betty's now have a patio garden, where the tourists can sit in the sun and fry to a crisp; it's in the back, that little square of cracked cement where they used to keep the garbage cans. They offer t...
Axiom: you are a sea. Your eye-lids curve over chaosMy handswhere they touch you, createsmall inhabited islandssoon you will be
At this dim season of the year we hunger for such tales. Winter's tales, they are. We want to huddle round them, as if around a small but cheerful fire... It was the right thing to do on the darkest d...
At first the solution was to build more prisons and cram more people into them, but that soon became prohibitively expensive. (Here Ed flicks through a few more slides.) Not only that, it resulted in...
As the architects of Gilead knew, to institute an effective totalitarian system or indeed any system at all you must offer some benefits and freedoms, at least to a privileged few, in return for those...
As a species we’re doomed by hope, then?
Another of those things that must be true because everyone else agrees they are, although they don’t seem so to me.
And then I thought: 'It's for a warning,' she continues. You may think a bed is a peaceful thing, sir. For you it may mean rest, and comfort, and a good night's sleep. But it isn't so for everyone. Th...
And so I step up, into the darkness within; or else the light.
And I said that Crozier did not need to call Fuck right now because we were not in trouble and did not need his help. And Toby said, That's right, he doesn't like to be summoned on trivial matters. An...
After a certain point, the ravages of experience reverse themselves; we put on innocence with advancing age, at least in the minds of others.
A wall that cannot be defended is no sooner built than ended.
A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze.
A great fear came over me, and my body went entirely cold, and I stood as if paralyzed with fear; for I knew that the horse was no earthly horse, but the pale horse that will be sent at the Day of Rec...
A Sister, dipped in blood
Women on their own, making up their minds. They wore blouses with buttons down the front that suggested the possibilities of the word undone. These women could be undone; or not. They seemed to be abl...
Most people prefer a past is which nothing smells.
This is the solstice, the still pointof the sun, its cusp and midnight,the year’s thresholdand unlocking, where the pastlets go of and becomes the future;the place of caught breath, the doorof a vanis...
Because that was the effect love had on you. It snuck up on you, grabbed hold of you before you know it, and then there was nothing you could do. Once you were in it - in love - you would be swept awa...
She's just jealous, people say, as if jealousy is something minor. But it's not, it's the worst, it's the worst feeling there is - incoherent and confused and shameful, and at the same time self-right...