I cannot believe I have been duped, not once but twice. My three years gaining a degree in psychology was clearly a waste of time. I might as well have studied Klingon.

Are there not times, Ridley, when you yourself wish only to hear the best in people – and not to be dragged downwards into the underworld we all regularly inhabit?

Well, how did you die, then?” the old man finally asked. “Die?” Matthew threw back. “Are you crazy? I’m not dead. I’m just very late.

He paused, giving her a sweet smile of understanding. "You don't have to start with the crown jewels, you know. You could start with my lips then work your way down.

She knew there were only small joys in life--the big ones were too complicated to be joys when you got all through--and once you realized that, it took a lot of the pressure off.

she should have told me that times slides away on a hillside of lose shale and takes everything in its path-dreams, opportunities, hopes. And youth. It takes that fastest of all.

For me, the short story is not a character sketch, a mouse trap, an epiphany, a slice of suburban life. It is the flowering of a symbol center. It is a poem grafted onto sturdier stock.

In her hand was a necklace with a small oval pendant, a half of a locket engraved with one of the same symbols from the mirror frame—what Quinn saw as rolling waves. ~ "The Mirro

Shaw Centre has restaurants on the fourth floor, where the ACS boy can pull chairs out for her. Girls love this because no one else does it for them, especially not those sotong RI boys.

Most of the girls I've met since moving here have failed to ignite any modicum of enduring interest. Of course, I've dated; I'm seventeen years old and as horny as the next guy.

I'm following hot on her heels, smarting from her latest rebuttal, and I can't contain my temper as the flood of rejection washes over me, tossing me precariously close to the edge.

Short story collections are the literary equivalent of canapés, tapas and mezze in the world of gastronomy: Delightful assortments of tasty morsels to whet the reader's appetite.

There was something vaguely sad about the rock. It was as old as it looked, standing weathered and lonely amidst the stretch of sand, and its thoughts were quiet as it listened to the waves.

He had had no experience in asking for a job with a big organization, and Mr. Dilling was making him aware of what a fine art it was--if you couldn't run a machine. A duel was under way.

Good choice, Polly,” she soothes, caressing my long, dark hair.“You may not have been fucked by a woman before but, if you’re a good girl now, then you soon will be…