Going Out
A three-thousand-pound slab, a pair of sunglasses and a book, a sprouting of wings
Sunbeams
If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.
Men And Their Sorrows
An Interview With John Lee
Most men are afraid to stop working because if they do, they will have to confront their pain directly. A man who works twenty hours a week has time to consider his anxieties. A man who works forty to sixty hours a week can avoid looking at everything.
The Marvelous Adventure Of Cabeza De Vaca
In the days that followed, in my first desolate confrontation with slaughter, I saw a far-off light, heard a far-off strain of music. Such words serve as well as any: for what words can describe a happening in the shadows of the soul?
Mistaken Identity
I want to love myself the way a stubborn question loves certainty, loves it in spite of itself.
Instrument Of The Immortals
Miss Eva Hodges, my piano teacher for eight years, now deceased, would be gratified to learn that I bought the Steinway. She’d be proud of me.
The Wrong Peas
In every diner, there are those who insist the waiter explain the precise inner workings of a tuna-fish sandwich before they place their orders. I’m not one of them.
Finding Out About Your Heart
After twenty-five years in the courtroom, you only have to look at the foreman to know a jury’s mind. The doc’s expression tells you what he has found out about your heart.
Plum Island
One of Quick’s students is fishing at the foot of the beach beneath the shack he rents on Plum Island. The dog wants walking. There is no escape. The girl’s name is Harley and she is barely passing Spanish.
Sunrise, Montana
My God, he was a beautiful man. The way he sat on a horse. Or the way he rolled a cigarette. Charlie Freeman. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
