fiction

Grandpa said that we could solve a lot of the world__ problems if we considered cats and dogs edible. Like the neighbor__ dog who goes to the bathroom in his flower garden. And know what else?

Look, I went to a lot of trouble to come here and try to help you. I__ in more trouble than I can guess, but if you don__ want my help_ maybe I should have just stayed home.

I never look at a painting and ask, "Is this painting fictional or non-fictional?" It's just a painting.

I could have drowned today. If they hadn__ been screaming my name so loudly and if I hadn__ woken up, I would have drowned.

He wasn't, I realized when I read those scenes concerning Blair and myself, close to any of us-- except of course to Blair, and really not even to her. He was simply someone who floated through our lives and didn't seem to care how flatly he perceived everyone or that he'd shared our secret failures with the world, showcasing the youthful indifference, the gleaming nihilism, glamorizing the horror of it all. But there was no point in being angry with him.

Our first kiss was there on the bridge in the woods. How do you describe a first kiss? It is like trying to hold water in your hands. There is an ancient Chinese proverb that compares kissing to drinking salted water. __ou drink, and your thirst increases,_ it says. Time, I__ sure, passed by, but we remained unavailable for comment.

While my chosen form of story-writing is obviously a special and perhaps a narrow one, it is none the less a persistent and permanent type of expression, as old as literature itself. There will always be a certain small percentage of persons who feel a burning curiosity about unknown outer space, and a burning desire to escape from the prison-house of the known and the real into those enchanted lands of incredible adventure and infinite possibilities which dreams open up to us, and which things like deep woods, fantastic urban towers, and flaming sunsets momentarily suggest.

Appalling things can happen to children. And even a happy childhood is filled with sadnesses. Is there any other period in your life when you hate your best friend on Monday and love them again on Tuesday? But at eight, 10, 12, you don't realise you're going to die. There is always the possibility of escape. There is always somewhere else and far away, a fact I had never really appreciated until I read Gitta Sereny's profoundly unsettling Cries Unheard about child-killer Mary Bell.At 20, 25, 30, we begin to realise that the possibilities of escape are getting fewer. We begin to picture a time when there will no longer be somewhere else and far away. We have jobs, children, partners, debts, responsibilities. And if many of these things enrich our lives immeasurably, those shrinking limits are something we all have to come to terms with.This, I think, is the part of us to which literary fiction speaks.

I came to the party with the sole purpose of getting completely shit-faced, to be perfectly honest. That was it, that was The Plan from the very beginning. I wanted more than anything that ever regrettable, forgetting-everything-you-learned-as-a-toddler kind of wasted that only either the completely stupid venture into or the complete novice (given how naive I was I think I fall more into the latter category). It was a very simple plan, but I like to think the simplest ones tend to be the most effective. The Plan sure as hell didn't involve everything else that happened that night, as all of that occurred quite naturally on its own.

The last image I registered was Ethan and my hand _ linked, bound and unbreakable.

I don__ want to look. I__e got to look._ Vance... "Vital Perception

Misery comes to miser; joy comes to wiser. (A Very Hot Cup of Tea, Empathy)Juvenile invites, youth tries, adult applies, and the old man dies. (A Straw Man, Empathy)In everyone, there lives a superhero. (The Medicine Man, Empathy)Faith is the strongest word in any dictionary. (The Wisdom Beard, Empathy)I__e entered into your feelings; it__ your turn now. (Empathy)

I write fiction not for my readers and not for myself. I write fiction for the sake of those odd heroic characters that are contained therein. They are counting on me as much as I am counting on them.

Since truth is often stranger than fiction, fiction needs to be pretty weird.

He sent it flying at full speed. It jumped six times as well, sending ripples across the sea. The small splashes of foam turned into miniature rainbows as they caught the light of the evening sun setting behind the clouds.

What__ broken is broken__nd I__ rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I live_I__ too old to believe in such sentimentalities as clean slates and starting all over.

Although nobody could ever know about our friendship, that wasn__ going to stop us from being together.

We were like wanderers in a desert, blessed with a rare downpour, but unable to store the rain.