He was aware of his agnosticism, and patient with it. Rather than deny the existence of something he couldn’t perceive himself, he acknowledged the authenticity of his uncertainty and carried on, pray...
Do you know what made me fall in love with you? George asked suddenly. Anne shook her head, puzzled that he should ask her this now. I heard you laugh, down the hall, just before I got to Spanish clas...
Tidy up before leaving for the day. When
There are still times when the thief I started out to be feels more authentic to me than the priest I’ve been for decades. To be pulled out of a slum and educated is to be an outsider forever— He stop...
Out whose side they were on. Even Fat
Hair and crumbs and unidentifiable orts to be vacuumed,
Your sorrow is of no interest to me, Sandoz said softly. If you want absolution, go to a priest.
Your Holiness, we are more than prepared to concede that overpopulation alone is not the sole cause of poverty and misery, Giuliani began. Fatuous oligarchies, Gelasius suggested. Ethnic paranoia. Whi...
You know what’s the most terrifying thing about admitting that you’re in love?...You put yourself in harm’s way and you lay down all your defenses...Completely vulnerable. The only thing that makes it...
You know what I think? Ten percent of any group of human beings are shitheads. Catholics, Jews. Germans, Italians. Pilots, priests. Teachers, doctors, shopkeepers. Ten percent are shitheads. Another t...
Why is it that God gets all the credit for the good stuff, but it's the doctor's fault when shit happens? When the patient comes through, it's always 'Thank God,' and when the patient dies, it's alway...
When the bet is placed, he said, a moment is carved away from the past and the future. In that enchanted moment, anything is possible. A man's debts and regrets and limitations disappear. He is buyin'...
WELL, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, the Stella Maris is on her way out of the solar system,
They all knew it was gallows humor. There would be babies born to thirteen-year-olds who would show up at the clinic with stomachaches. Backs and shoulders wrenched, wrists damaged, knees torn at the...
There are a thousand ways for a boy of fifteen to go wrong. The most gently reared will lash out, battered by gusts of mindless fury. The brightest can be swamped by black despair. The sweetest may tu...
The trick is not to care. I have a perfect indifference to winning.
The mission, he thought, probably failed because of a series of logical, reasonable, carefully considered decisions, each of which seemed like a good idea at the time. Like most colossal disasters.
The irony is that each new war begins in hope: hope of restoring lost honor, hope of redressing injustices and reclaiming tarnished glory, hope of a grand new world. Each war ends with the black seeds...
Stability and order have always been paid for with captivity and blood. (76)
Sometimes, he told her, leaning forward over the table, speaking without realizing how it would sound, I begin with songs. They provide a sort of skeleton grammar for me to flesh out. Songs of longing...