Emi paced back and forth, fixing her jacket out of nervousness. The cool breeze crawled around her skin and she shivered.

For weeks they used every medium to say: This day will be an end or a beginning.

One of these days we aren’t going to believe whatever they tell us.

My friend and I were once walking the aisles of a supermarket because we decided we were going to have roasted duck. We didn’t know how to cook, but as the old Filipino reds used to say: If not now, when? If we don’t learn how to cook now, as in NOW, then

a man sees salamander bands / a-cracklin on the scree

Savvy as a nine-year-old playing poker with high rollers in Las Vegas, that was Paulie. She'd finally thrown Dick Weasel out the night before, but that morning Diana'd shot down their plan of sharing the house in a “man-free”…

It was a dire and dun-colored year when groupies wept and autograph seekers put down their pens.

Birds fly and people hurry in the wind and rain like it's a matter of pity.

I was insufficiently abused as a child.

Sometimes, you compare your living situation to a prison because it makes you feel better. "At least I have a fridge," you think to yourself.

Pascal would let something slip now and then. He was sharp and spoke excellent English, with a beautiful Spanish accent. He corrected speech among the guys, but he exercised his lessons in grammar with an eloquence that fascinated all of us, not letting a

“The King,” he paused, pursed his lips, looked across the crowd of eager and fearful citizens of Ki, “is dead!”

"...she became aware of her cold saliva dripping slowly over her bare arm muscle,..."

“Have the cousins arrived?”

After her grief had subsided, the wife felt immediate relief. / Suddenly she was free to abandon or pursue loneliness