...seeing the way his trousers clung to those most English parts.

What your mind sees when you close your eyes marks the entrance to an endless universe: your imagination.

For a moment, she thought it natural in a way seeing a plane fall from the sky can seem natural, too. The horror comes later.

[M]y mother read a horror novel every night. She had read every one in the library. When birthdays and Christmas would come, I would consider buying her a new one, the latest Dean R. Koontz or Stephen King or whatever, but I couldn't. I didn't want to encourage her. I couldn't touch my father's cigarettes, couldn't look at the Pall Mall cartons in the pantry. I was the sort of child who couldn't even watch commercials for horror movies - the ad for Magic, the movie where marionette kills people. sent me into a six-month nightmare frenzy. So I couldn't look at her books, would turn them over so their covers wouldn't show, the raised lettering and splotches of blood - especially the V.C. Andrews oeuvre, those turgid pictures of those terrible kids, standing so still, all lit in blue.

His was a great sin who first invented consciousness. Let us lose it for a few hours.

I want you to smile. I want you to truly smile today.Realize that right now you are where you need to be. And, there is no need to rush. You are on-time, you always have been and you will always be. Please keep smiling.