Night had fallen, and Diane admired the deep sky behind Steve’s calm countenance. They looked into each other’s eyes again and felt the spark and excitement of discovery. As if to celebrate the perfect, life-enabling distance of the earth from the sun, Diane and Steve kissed again.””-The Grand Unified Story (a Short Story) from Stories...

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” (Edmund Burke)

Check my riddle, and I’ll let you play my fiddle.

It’s bewildering to me how you can just start chatting with a complete stranger on Facebook, and – next thing you know – it seems as if there’s some intense connection with the person – or at least you feel that closeness and hope it’s mutual

Well, on some level, it’s similar to the psychological phenomenon of helplessness, where the will to try is lost. You get to the point where you just assume that your spontaneous call to a friend will go to voicemail or an assistant, and you decide not to bother.

I had always been an atheist until I met Lenny. He was too wonderously complex and good for there to be no benevolent and intelligent force behind our marvelous cosmos. Lenny gave me the actual proof my fiercely skeptical mind had always demanded. Not some logical, 37-step proof of God’s existence. It was a personal...

But despite these and many other differences, Evan and Heeb had become close friends – an improbability that could have been produced only by the even greater improbabilities that brought them together.

So…Now that we got that over with, let’s get back to love at first sight, Evan said. Not infatuation at first sight…Love. With a capital L, he clarified.Love? Heeb asked, playfully pretending not to know the concept.Yeah. The real thing. The conviction that if you had this one woman, all other women would become irrelevant....

You and your siblings are the most precious part of my life. And of all my children, you have the most potential to go anywhere you wish in this world – your test scores and grades have always been among the highest of your peers. But it’s clear now that you cannot reach your full...

Having had virtually no contact with the outside world for the last few weeks, Evan had temporarily forgotten the social norms governing shopping conduct or approaching celebrities in public.

Hard,” she replied.

Youth is marked by a breathtaking novelty that diminishes with each year of age – until life becomes a delusive struggle to break routines, escape the ordinary, and rediscover the joy of discovery.

That could also be because at one point during the film, our hands found each other. And when I felt Michael’s middle finger caress the inside of my palm, it sent a tickle up my spine, and the fingers of my right hand were soon exploring his left hand, and we each took turns tracing...

Yeah. The tax that men have to pay for not having to menstruate every month. Or risk getting pregnant. Or deal with the physically stronger sex in a macho world… Women have to put up with all that stuff, so the least we men can do is pay the male tax and get the tab.

Have you ever experienced a beauty of soul, an esthetic grace, that was so intense it made you want to cry?”From Central Park Song ( A Screenplay )

At one point, I began to think that I had a divine doorman. Lenny was the most unlikely incarnation of God I could imagine, and yet, I kept drifting irresistibly towards this absurd conclusion. Despite my staunchly atheistic inclinations, I couldn’t explain Lenny any other way. But eventually I came to my senses and realized...

Isn’t it better just to make your own money, and then spend it how and when you want, and with dignity?

Honest dishonesty. That’s quite the oxymoron – but I like the originality that you’ve brought to bear in the art of rationalization. Maybe you should consider becoming a lawyer,” he added jokingly.

They truly embodied goodness and generosity – like angels sent to save me in my hour of greatest need. Mohammed had risked everything to keep a promise to my father. He and his family saved not only my life, but also my faith in others.

Of course I do. But I always feel guilty when that happens. After all, my journal is the oldest and most loyal friend I have. And it never interrupts me when I’m speaking,” he added, with a boyish grin.

There’s no savior here. Especially not at 1:15 a.m.

The official recruiting process for their posse began. Because Carlos, Narc, and Trevor each had high SQs, Heeb and Evan reasoned that adding the three to their group would raise the average SQ of each group member (much the way that colleges recruit individuals with higher test scores to increase the average test scores of...

Yeah. Isn’t it great?

So our narcissism has bared forth an unflattering nakedness that shames our species. But this is humanity. This is our condition.

I kept returning to this new and bizarre question: is there anything that actually is as it seems? Is anything perceptually straightforward? Maybe that’s inherently impossible, because impressions are, by their very nature, cumulative – the sum of all your interactions with and perceptions of things.

With the music of our singing in the background, I looked at the church candles and thought about the surreal connection between images and memory. The peaceful and joyous candles flickering there during the Christmas ceremony projected warmth, comfort, and familiarity – even though thy emitted the same kind of fiery energy as the flames...

My mother gave it to me mother, who passed it to me. Now is the right time to give it to you. Not just because you’re leaving and will need something that always connects you to your roots, but also because tonight we remember her.

It will all work out, Inas. You come from a long line of survivors and strong women. So everything will be fine in the end. And we are always with you in spirit, to guide you and love you.

Sometimes violence is necessary to prevent even more violence,” I concluded, almost as if it were an epiphany.

Well why don’t you lean over this counter a little more and give me your best kiss, and then I’ll tell you if I want you to take me out to dinner.

Yeah, the execution

ERIC: What are you always writin’ in that book anyway?RODNEY: Poetry.TYRONE: Poetry?Rodney stops sketching and sentimentally flips through a few dozen pages of sketches and handwritten poems and notes.RODNEY: Poetry and pictures. Snapshots of our lives developed in the darkrooms of our souls.”From CENTRAL PARK SONG — a screenplay

We pick the people who populate our personal lives as much for who they make us as for who they are. I chose Anna for the person I became in her presence, and in this respect, my love for her was a more selfish one

Don’t invite envy to your house – you never know who will show up,” she used to warn me.

When you look for beauty, you usually end up finding it.From Central Park Song (A Screenplay)

Oh no. I’m not gonna let you leave yet. I’m gonna show you the value of takin’ your time to get to work. I probably should have done this a long time ago.

The unlikely group that resulted from the union of five diverse characters in their late twenties operated with surprising harmony. This cohesiveness could be attributed to two factors: 1) everyone’s issues and embarrassing pasts were plainly disclosed prior to the gang’s formation and 2) the clan had been expressly conceived as a male support group.

And you can do far more for us from America than you can from here, where you’re just another defenseless Christian. So if you really want to help, Inas, then you’ll go to the very best school you can get into and earn the best grades you can.

I’m not sure. But – unless I’m struggling with the darkness within – I like to sustain the illusion that death is actually much further from me than it really is.

And how am I supposed to find a husband if I can’t have a boyfriend until then?” I asked ironically.

Every human relationship begins with a coincidence. Even the most fundamental relationship – that of parent and child – begins entirely with a coincidence. The child is produced by whatever serendipity brought its parents together, and the fact that the child was born to its particular parents instead of to another couple is pure happenstance....

Anyway, I think Florence and I noticed each other before the local train screeched to a halt at the 110th Street station, because as I boarded it felt as though we were supposed to step into the same car, and hold onto the same moist metal bar. My wishful hunch now seems confirmed by the...

Steve’s throat swelled with tension as the intimacy of the moment became more tangible. He moved his eyes from the dark, reflective river, to the dark, reflective pupils in Diane’s eyes. They seemed to quiver with tenderness – but then they would grow distant. He found himself continually surprised at the “aliveness” of the person...

So your theory would seem to be that lying to yourself is no lie at all because you haven’t deceived any third party. And if you then convince yourself of those lies, you’ll believe them enough to repeat them to other with the genuine conviction that they’re true.” “Something like that,” I conceded uneasily.

penilosophy.

Let the park live in you until it sings you a song.

Paradoxically, the more Michael kept me at a distance, the more I trusted him – perhaps because he was always willing to help me with tips and introductions even though he wanted absolutely nothing from me (and never reciprocated my nosiness with personal questions of his own with me).

Aren’t 3,000 lives worth a miracle to a good and all-powerful god?

At times like these, size really does matter,” I point out, at I extend my ginormous umbrella over her in a way that stops any rain droplets from falling on her.My Best Valentine’s Day Ever, A Short Story by Zack Love

So if you choose me, then you have declared me more special to you than anyone else, because only one man can have that honor.