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A reader is a carrier, not a creator.
Films are ephemeral, while books—the good ones—are eternal, or close to it.
I have total recall of what followed. I have no idea why the bad memories of childhood and early adolescence are so clear, I only know they are. And this is a very bad memory.
I don’t believe in messing with what I don’t understand. My grandmother used to say a person shouldn’t call out unless they want an answer. I’ve always thought that was good advice.
“Well, if ghosts exist,” she said, “I’ll bet not all of them are holy.”
Call it the ghost in the machine.” “Yes,” I said, “but not a holy one.”
there are a great many things I’m not sure of. Reality itself, for a start. I do know two things, however, and they are as solid as New England rock. I don’t want to be cremated when I go, and I want to be buried with empty pockets.
Brian speaks looking down at his clasped hands. “I want to believe in God, Unc, and I sort of do, but I don’t understand why it has to be this way. Why God would let it be this way. It’s a mystery? You’re the hotshot philosophy guy and that’s the best you can do?” Yes, because death brings philosophy to ruin, Doug thinks.
He sets up his hi-hat and crash cymbal, then adds the cowbell, because it feels like a cowbell kind of day.
Love is a gift; love is also a chain with a manacle at each end.
Once she’s on the road again, and safe inside her rental car, Holly draws in a deep breath and lets it out in a scream. It helps.
It’s a Wonderful Life has always made her uneasy. She can relate to George Bailey at the beginning of the film, but by the end he strikes her as someone with a serious bipolar condition who’s arrived at the manic part of his cycle. She has even wondered if, after the movie ends, he creeps out of bed and murders his whole family.
