Love is this elusive bird, he said. You're the lifelong bird-watcher, looking for this rare red-plumed quail people spend entire lives trying to see for three seconds in a cherry tree on a mountaintop...
It’s what we chase but never find. It is the mystery of our lives, the understanding that even when we have everything we want it is one day to leave us. It’s the something unseen, the lurking devasta...
It appeared in the Internet age, pianos, like physical books, were fast becoming culturally extinct. They'd probably stay that way unless Apple invented the iPiano, which fit inside your pocket and co...
I pretended not to notice, but Dad looked sort of deflated there on the edge of my bed. A lost, even humbled look was wandering around his face (quite surprised to be there). Seeing him like this, so...
I looked like I wasn’t at a cocktail party but an airport, waiting for my life to take off.Infinitely delayed.
God, the boring relative everyone ignores—no one calls, no one writes—until they need a serious favor.
Funnily enough, it is the subject one dreads talking about at length one ends up talking about at length, often without the slightest provocation.
Astrid taught me some of the words. I've never forgotten them. One was 'terulya.' It meant deep-diving love, a love that excavates you. It's something you have to have before you die in order to have...
You know what Confucius said? Remind me. ‘Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.’
Wir sind alle Anthologien. Wir sind Tausende von Seiten lang, voller Märchen und Poesie, Geheimnisse und Tragödien und vergessener Geschichten ganz am Ende, die nie jemand lesen wird.
What you tend to find in the personal lives of brilliant men is devastation akin to a nuclear bomb going off.
They should really tack that on to the marriage ceremony: 'Do you promise to love, honor, obey me, and also to kill me when I can no longer stand in a shower?
The days shuffled by like bland schoolgirls. I didn’t notice their individual faces, only their basic uniform: day and night, day and night.I had no patience for showers or balanced meals. I did a lot...
Only the greatest of personal demons can force you to do powerful work.
No way, man. I got one rule as a driver.What’s that?Never look in da rearview mirror. We drifted into the left-hand lane, cutting off a cab.It’s not healthy to keep a’ watchin’ what you leavin’ behind...
Making love to Aurelia was like rummaging through a card catalog in a deserted library, searching for one very obscure, little-read entry on Hungarian poetry.
It was true. After our divorce, I'd ended up in a slight relationship with my last research assistant, Aurelia Feinstein, age 34-though let me state for the record it was not as hot as it sounded. Mak...
Have you the world lately, McGrath? The cruelty, the lack of connection? If you're an artist, I'm sure you can't help but wonder what it's all for. We're living longer, we social network alone with o...
Due to Jade's fortresslike manner, which, like any well-built castle, made access challenging, girls found her existence not only threatening but flat-out wrong. Although Bartelby Athletic Center feat...
As far as one journeys, as much as a man sees, from the turrets of the TajMahal to the Siberian wilds, he may eventually come to an unfortunateconclusion —usually while he's lying in bed, staring at t...