I do not think the patient truly meant to end her life. Her act was a cry for help.
This is my country,′ Lefty said, and to prove it, he did a very American thing: he reached under the counter and produced a pistol.
That was when I realized a shocking thing. I couldn’t become a man without becoming The Man. Even if I didn’t want to.
The matter with us is you.
Out past the weekly glimpsed windows, out past the street, lived the world, which had, Old Mrs. Karafilis knew, been dying for years.
It is wonderful barefoot in New York. It is like walking on one big giant tomb!
You used to be able to tell a person’s nationality by the face. Immigration ended that. Next you discerned nationality via the footwear. Globalization ended that. Those Finnish seal puppies, those German flounders – you don’t see them much anymore. Only Nikes, on Basque, on Dutch, on Siberian feet.
Though the weather was cool, the beach at Herringsdorf was dotted with quite a few diehard nudists. Primarily men, they lay walrus-like on towels or boosterously congregated.
A sniper is cowardly, sneaky; he kills from a distance, unseen.
Everyone in the room was so spectral-looking that Madeleine’s natural healthiness seemed suspect, like a vote for Reagan.
The sonogram didn’t exist at the time; the spoon was the next best thing.
Or in my grandparents’s case, the circling worked like this: as they paced around the deck the first time, Lefty and Desdemona were still brother and sister. The second time, the were bride and bridegroom. And the third, they were husband and wife.
Being a writer is a solitary life. So the little part of me that’s an actor still enjoys the theatrical part of reading and doing the voices and telling the story.
Household objects lost meaning. A bedside clock became a hunk of molded plastic, telling something called time, in a world marking it’s passage for some reason.
She wanted a book to take her places she couldn’t get to herself.
Detroit’s a great music town. If your interaction with it was mainly musical, I’m sure you have a good opinion of the place.
I remember liking to write stories pretty early on. In fourth or fifth grade, they would give us the beginning of a story, and we were supposed to finish it. I remember liking that. But I didn’t think about deciding to become a writer until high school at about the age of 16.
It was possible to feel superior to other people and feel like a misfit at the same time.
Jerome was sliding and climbing on top of me and it felt like it had the night before, like a crushing weight. So do boys and men announce their intentions. They cover you like a sarcophagus lid. And call it love.
I wanted to be an actor. My parents were not too keen on that.