God save me from a woman’s tears, for I’ve no strength against them.
You have been deceived. Spiritualism is no more a science than thievery. For that’s all this is – very skilled dodgers stealing money from the bereaved for a little glint of hope. People see what they want to see when they need to.
I am staring into the hissing face of a cobra. A surprisingly pink tongue slithers in and out of a cruel mouth while an Indian man whose eyes are the blue of blindless inclines his head towards my mother and explains in Hindi that cobras make very good eating.
Sometimes Felicity is as much a mystery to me as the location of the Temple. She is spiteful and childish one minute, lively and spirited in the next; a girl kind enough to bring Ann home for Christmas and small enough to think Kartik her inferior.
It was hard to feel safe in the world when you were a girl.
Fashionable debutantes in pastel chiffon party dresses wilt into leather club chairs like frosted petit fours melting under the July sun.
Your mind is not a cage. It’s a garden. And it requires cultivating.
He loved her very much. She inspired his work. He used to say, ‘There is no meaning but what we assign to life, and she is my meaning.
Creostus’s booming laugh leaves gooseflesh upon my arms. He paces close to me. “Jealous, Priestess? Do you wish to compete for my affections? I should like to see that.” “I’m sure you would. But you will die first and so let us journey to Philon, if you please.
With a low bow, she is gone in a haze of roses and hope.
And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time.
You can never really know someone completely. That’s why it’s the most terrifying thing in the world, really – taking someone on faith, hoping they’ll take you on faith too. It’s such a precarious balance, It’s a wonder we do it at all. And yet...
Libraries are the torch of the world, illuminating the path when it feels too dark to see. We mustn’t allow that torch to be extinguished.
When she can’t bring me to heal with scolding, she bends me to shape with guilt.
Any librarian or scholar will tell you: Close is not the same as accurate.
But we can’t go back. We can only go forward.
A guy’s gotta live, you know, gotta make his way and find his meaning in life and love, and to do that he needs coffee, he needs coffee and coffee and coffee.
Jeez, someone needs to push the reset button on this planet.
Time has no meaning. I feel as if I have been left in the desert to die and am eagerly awaiting the vultures to begin their work and end my misery.
Our mouths and bodies speak for us in a new language as the trees shake loose a rain of petals that stick to our slickness like skins we will wear forever. And just like that, I am changed.