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The dead cowards my parents on a tear through the goddamn fields.

All diseases were conquered. Death was an adventure for volunteers.

If others call you a maniac or a fool, just let them wag their tongues.

“I think he does not care for art; I fancy he has not even read Pushkin.”

The dog glares back at Roger, his eyes on fire, but he doesn’t let her go.

Human language, Winston thought, was not adequate for spiritual union.

The peanut seller tore sheets out of paperback books to make the cones.

The distant past returned—what part of it, he could not decide.

I shoved them one by one, easy as pie yet with care, just shy of mercy.

For my vacation last summer, I visited the Bateer family in Xiwuqi.

Certainly the ushers who pass the baskets know me as a miser.

I used bravado to protect myself when we lived in poverty.

“We’d be naive,” Crump went on, “not to assume that people are vile.”

Frank kept his face blank as he read the orders: Report to Berlin.

I want to focus on bears. On knowing them, and on what they need.

The hawk moves out of the way to let a little hot package of breath rise up.

Man is always beginning everything anew, even in his own life.

We are in his car. “Bell, I’m starving. Want to go for a burger or pizza?” I panic. Pizza. 285 calories per slice. Burgers. Harder to estimate.

“I’d like to talk to C about her personal statement,” Blattman said.

Lorenzo and me, we’d squat our own building. It was the new frontier.

Advance planning was never Hank’s strong suit, he had to leave her.

Paul King was shiftless and drunken; ugly tales were told of him.

She did not leave him for the sailor. So why should he be angry?

So that’s what I’d look like if every beauty parlor in the world shut down.

Two weeks after she and Mark were married, Hannah fell in love.

All over the planet people try to end pain: striptease, bee stings.

It was true. We would probably never visit that place again.

I grabbed him by the face and told him life only comes to a person once.

The allure of Mardi Gras is to feel this way: unseen and unseeable.