The only thing worse than a boy who hates you: a boy that loves you.

If they killed him tonight, at least he would die alive.

She walked down the basement steps. She saw an imaginary framed photo seep into the wall – a quiet-smiled secret. No more than a few meters, it was a long walk to the drop sheets...

Somewhere, far down, there was an itch in his heart, but he made it a point not to scratch it. He was afraid of what might come leaking out.

… I felt something and vowed that if I ever got a girl I would treat her right and never be bad or dirty to her or hurt her, ever. I vowed it and had...

You should know it yourself- a young man is still a boy, and a boy sometimes has the right to be stubborn.

I don’t really know that this story has a whole lot of things happen in it. It doesn’t really. It’s just a record of how things were in my life during this last winter. I...

Fair enough. You want some of mine?

Why do they have windows? Is it to let a glimpse of the world in? Or for us to see out? Our own place is small perhaps, but when your old man is eaten up...

Why can’t the world hear? I ask myself. Within a few moments I ask it many times. Because it doesn’t care, I finally answer, and I know I’m right. It’s like I’ve been chosen. But...

Death’s Diary: 1942 -It was a year for the ages, like 79, like 1346, to just name a few. Forget the scythe, God damn it, I needed a broom or a mop. And I needed...

As always, one of her books was next to her.

I told her I loved the howling sound of her harmonica. That seemed to be the limit of my courage that night, and even those spoken words had to struggle their way out of my...

…to swear with a ferocity that can only be described as a talent.

It was one of those moments of perfect tiredness, of having conquered not only the work at hand, but the night who had blocked the way.

I…” He struggled to answer. “When everything was quiet, I went up to the corridor and the curtain in the livingroom was open just a crack… I could see outside. I watched, only for a...

Awkward.That’s exactly how it was when we walked over to our sister and stood on each side of her, looking at her and feeling things and not knowing what to do.

The word maybe was beginning to annoy me, because the only thing that was fixed was that maybe would be with me forever.

Together, they would watch everything that was so carefully planned collapse, and they would smile at the beauty of destruction.

Best friends one, and now we have almost nothing to say to each other. It was interesting, how he had joined those guys and I just stayed on my own. I didn’t like it or...

Son, you can’t go around painting yourself black, you hear?” “Why not, Papa?” “Because they’ll take you away.” “Why?” “Because you shouldn’t want to be like black people or Jewish people or anyone who is…not...

It feels like spoken words, this bridge. I want it but fear it. God, I want so desperately to reach the other side – just like I want the words. I want my words to...

The thing is, I don’t even hate cops. To tell you the truth, I actually feel a little sorry for them.

Whoever named Himmel Street certainly had a healthy sense of irony. Not that is was a living hell. It wasn’t. But is sure as hell wasn’t heaven, either.

I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.

I find writing extremely difficult. I usually have to drag myself to my desk, mainly because I doubt myself. And it’s getting harder because I want to improve with every book.

He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It’s his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry.

for some reason, dying men always ask the question they know the answer to. perhaps it’s so they can die being right.

When finally she finished and stood herself up, he put his arm around her, best-buddy style, and they walked on. There was no request for a kiss. Nothing like that. You can love Rudy for...

Disbelief held me down inside my footsteps, making my body heavy but my heart wild.

Even now, I wonder how much of my life is convinced.

He was waving. “Saukerl,” she laughed, and as she held up her hand, she knew completely that he was simultaneously calling her a Saumensch. I think that’s as close to love as eleven-year-olds can get.

Right. That’s twenty-two fifty.””Twenty-two fifty?” We can’t hide our exasperation.”Well, yeah – this is a classy joint, you know.””That’s obvious – the service is incredible.

If someone wanted to be a runner, you don’t tell them to think about running, you tell them to run. And the same simple idea applies to writing, I hope.

The dog next-door had settled down, and the neighbourhood seemed stunned by this event occurring in our backyard. It was like it could sense it. It could sense some form of tragedy and helplessness being...

She looks at the swings, and I can see she’s imagining what they’d look like if the kids weren’t there. The guilt of this holds her down momentarily. It appears to be there constantly. Never...

I know who you are and I am ready. Not that I want to go, of course, but I will come.” Those souls are always light because more of them have been put out.

My arms are killing me. I didn’t know words could be so heavy.

I feel the fear, but I walk fast toward it.

Sure. God knows what’s important.

I wanted to drown inside a woman in the feeling and drooling of the love I could give her. I wanted her pulse to crush me with its intensity. That’s what I wanted. That’s what...

Max lifted his head, with great sorrow and great astonishment.’There were stars,’ He said. ‘They burned my eyes.’…from a Himmel street window, he wrote, the stars set fire to my eyes.

Every time you find something that doesn’t work, you’re a step closer to what does work.

It’s pathetic how a man can stand by and do nothing as a whole nation cleans out the garbage and makes itself great”-Hans Junior

I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race – that rarely do I even simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so...

…there would be punishment and pain, and there would be happiness, too. That was writing.

She wanted none of those days to end, and it was always with disappointment that she watched the darkness stride forward.

At first, all is black and white.Black on white.That’s where I’m walking, through pages.These pages.Sometimes it gets so that I have one foot in the pages and the words, and the other in what they...

You know,’ she begins, ‘you fellas ought to be looking after each other.’ Her comment makes me realise that through the lies, the greatest irony is that we are looking out for each other. It’s...

In that one stolen second, I considered the Glebe girl. She entered my mind like a burglar, them vanished again, taking nothing. It was like the humiliation of the past had been dragged instantly from...