Suffering, even though it may have happened a long time ago, is something that is passed from one generation to the next to the next, like flexibility or grace or dyslexia. My grandfather had big gree...
When she looked at me she saw a child surrounded by flames, screaming. And that must have been hard for her.
What you do at the pulpit would be considered lunatic behaviour on the street. You can’t go around terrorizing people and making them feel small and shitty and then call them evil when they destroy th...
I want her face to feel at home on an ancient coin, he said. I want her eyes to harm me.
I followed her out the door and watched her walk down the road towards home, hers, and the bright yard light, and her own bed, and our parents, and I stood there for a long time because I didn't know...
Things shouldn't hinge on so very little. Sneeze and you're highway carnage. Remove one tiny stone and you're an avalanche statistic. But I guess if you can die without ever understanding how it happe...
There are no windows within the dark house of depression through which to see others, only mirrors.
The director said he's got a haunted soul and a natural sweetness.
Sadness is what holds our bones in place.
Maybe she was enjoying a moment in her life, a sliver of light, a flash memory of one of her kids, something sweet and approaching reality.
I said. I’m a maid. I’m a dancer, she said. She stuck her elbows out and snapped her fingers. Well, I said. I get paid. Well, she said. I get applause. Well, I said. I get paid and with that money I r...
I heard Tash say: Nomi, you’re sad man. Get a grip. Walk away. What have I taught you? And I thought: You taught me that some people can leave and some can’t and those who can will always be infinitel...
Conversing with children is a fine art.... An art form that demands large amounts of both honesty and misdirection. Or maybe discretion is a better word.
By leaving, we are not necessarily disobeying the men according to the Bible, because we, the women, do not know exactly what is in the Bible, being unable to read it. Furthermore, the only reason why...
You still have to eat.
You put the fist in pacifist?
Yoli, she said, I’m just saying that apologies aren’t the bedrock of civilized society. All right! I said. I agree. But what is the bedrock of civilized society? Libraries, said Elf.
She was a strange, unsettled planet that had had once sustained life. She was a language that I had thought I almost understood even though I couldn't speak it. She hadn't always been this way. She us...
None of us have ever asked the men for anything, Agata states. Not a single thing, not even for the salt to be passed, not even for a penny or a moment alone or to take the washing in or to open a cur...
Listen, I said, I don't think you understand. I don't want to be presumptuous, but really how could you understand what another person's suicide means? My friend asked the waitress for more coffee. I...