When an acquaintance goes by I often step back from my window, not so much to spare him the effort of acknowledging me as to spare... myself the embarrassment of seeing that he has not done so.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When you grow up you realize that there isn't really any Santa but the monsters are still around. If only they were big and hairy;... now they're just dark and amorphous, and they're no longer afraid of the light. Sometimes they're the guy who climbs in the window and takes your television. And sometimes they're the guy who walks out the front door with your heart in his hand and never comes back. And sometimes they're the job or the bank or the wife or the boss or just that sort of dark heavy feeling that sits between your shoulder blades like a backpack. There are always terrible things waiting to grab you by the ankle, to pull you under, to get you with their long horrible arms. And you lie in bed and look at the shadows on the ceiling and feel, under the covers, just for a moment, like you're safe. One more day alive.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Oh Gull of my childhood, cry over my window over and over, take me back,... oh harbors of oil and cunners, teach me to laugh and cry again that way that was the good bargain of youth....LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Oh, I love Proust. We all learned from him how to go back in time. The difference is that Proust stayed in his room, and he observ...ed himself. He was Proust lying in his bed looking at Proust at the window who was looking at Proust in bed. In our generation's case, we are always in the middle. We are never on the outside. Whatever happens, happens to us.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I am sure my bones would not rest in an English grave, or my clay mix with the earth of that country. I believe the thought would ...drive me mad on my death-bed could I suppose that any of my friends would be base enough to convey my carcass back to her soil. I would not even feed her worms if I could help it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »