One thing yo learn when you’ve lived as long as I have-people aren’t all good, and people aren’t all bad. We move in and out of darkness and light all of our lives. Right now,...

We’re this big melting pot, but someone turned up the heat too high, and the stew started to burn. Gangs, crime, fights, and fear are now a regular part of our local stew.

Those eyes of his just look up at me, pupils dilated in the diffused lights of the room. Wide, black pools, seeking out galaxies.

The accountant lingers at his children’s doorway a moment more, listening to the easy rhythm of their breathing, and something cold moves through him, like the passage of a ghost – but he know that’s...

Sometimes, though, you make a pact with yourself. I’ll pretend there’s nothing wrong if you pretend there’s nothing wrong. It’s called denial, and it’s one of the strongest pacts in the world. Just ask all...

It was easier to deal with Tennyson when he was fighting me; but having him on my side was frightening, because now I didn’t know who the enemy was.

The question wasn’t whether or not I cared about him; the question was, how much? I’m glad Tennyson didn’t ask that, because then I’d have to ask myself; and I already knew the answer. I...

Please give me a single reason why I shouldn’t hurl myself beneath the wheels of that bus.

I came running down the stairs that morning, like it was Christmas. My parents were already up. In my family, presents never waited; they were there upon waking. Our family has a problem with what...

Griping is for those without a plan of action…

Happiness is not a state of being. Happiness is a vector, it is movement.

How many kids are in the Graveyard?””A bunch.””Who sends your supplies?””George Washington. Or is it Abraham Lincoln? I forget.””How often do you receive new arrivals?””About as often as you beat your wife.

Live by your impulses, and you’ll be just like them. You’re better than that, aren’t you, Red?

I’m against solutions that are worse than the problem. Like old women who want their hair dyed the color of shoe polish to hide the gray.

Cowards hide […] but warriors lie and wait […] the only difference is whether you’re motivated by fear or purpose.

On my fifteenth birthday, I came to realize that the expression spoiled rotten meant exactly that. We kids were the apples of our parents’ eyes, and I, for one, was rotting from inside out.

Lethargy. It’s a word I know, because it’s in one of my father’s favorite expressions. Lethargy breeds lethargy. It means the more you lie around doing nothing, the more you want to lie around doing...

I always hear people talk about ‘dysfunctional families.’ It annoys me, because it makes you think that somewhere there’s this magical family where everyone gets along, and no one ever screams things they don’t mean,...

…One thing you learn when you’ve lived as long as I have-people aren’t all good, and people aren’t all bad. We move in and out of darkness and light all of our lives. Right now,...

Respect doesn’t come without a little resentment.

killing”—and when one knows that death isn’t the end, does it stop the killing hand for fear of retribution, or does it simply make it easier to kill, because, if life continues, how can murder...

You should never apologize for existing, Lev. Not even to all those people out there who wish you didn’t.

How can you pass laws about things that nobody knows?””They do it all the time,” says Hayden. “That’s what law is: educated guesses at right and wrong.

The scariest thing of all is never knowing what you’re suddenly going to believe.

If someone had told Allie that she would commit a premeditated act of murder, she would not have believed it. She would have spouted off all the reasons how she could never be capable of...

I wrote Unwind for lots of reasons, and it poses questions about alot of subjects. To state it briefly, I wanted to point out how when peopletake intractable positions on an issue, and stick to...

Walls don’t fall without effort.

…Our conversation with the supermarket manager had been about as helpful as a New Jersey road sign, and if you’ve ever been there, you know the signs don’t tell you the exit you’re coming up...

You can’t change laws without first changing human nature… You can’t change human nature without first changing the law.

Once in a while our school has half days, and the teachers spend the afternoon ‘in service,’ which I think must be a group therapy for having to deal with us.

the Dancing Bear wants us to suffer.

Which side was I on? There was no time to search for answers. All I could do now was ride on a werewolf’s back, toward a destiny as hidden as the dark side of the...

Suddenly, Tara’s accomplishment was clear. She had lined up allies among the school’s various groups and got them all to work together for probably the first time in the school’s history. She was like a...

When you drop a pebble into a pond, ripples spread out, changing all the water in the pool. The ripples hit the shore and rebound, bumping into one another, breaking each other apart. In some...

Hope can be bruised and battered. It can be forced underground and even rendered unconscious, but hope cannot be killed.

The good Lord wouldn’t have put it in your heart if it wasn’t right.

You know,” he said, his voice making me feel cold in spite of the heat, “this city can get ahold of you and pull you back no matter how hard you try to climb out....

And so, as the mob backs away to give them space… as the riot police holster their weapons, standing down, and as Risa takes the podium, calming the crowd with a voice as soothing as...

The way I see it, the impossible happens all the time; but we’re so good at taking it for granted, we forget it was once impossible.

Makes sense, the earth is quick to consume the flesh of things that ain’t natural.

Then, in spite of everything, he began to smile. So much of his existence in Everlost had been full of despair. Despair, and a fear of losing what he had. But Allie was not lost,...

The measure of a man is not how much he suffers in the test, but how he comes out at the end.

His existence had always been comfortable, he had always held a clear picture of himself, his duties, and his place in a world. He saw that world as a place so full of turning gears...

Look behind you now.Do you feel in your heart a slight hastening of its beat, and a powerful sense that something momentous is about to happen?… Perhaps, then, this is the hour that Mary Hightower...

Perhaps that is the greatest crime of conquest–that a civilization is denied the right to evolve beyond its own embarrassment.

So is darkness better than a heartfelt lie?

I went home and tried to sleep, but couldn’t, so I stared up at the moon, watching how it’s trailing edge faded into darkness, so close to being full, but not quite there. A pregnant...

Dreams can twist your emotions like no reality can.

Wars have a way reinventing people. And making too many things disappear.-Sonia

With hardly any effort at all, she made me feel special. Just like all the other people she toyed with.