Salt

This business of being human is tougher than being the devil, or being God for that matter. And it doesn't matter whether in the role of brutalized or brutalizer.

from Salt
by Earl Lovelace
Persea Books, 1997

The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears

There are those who wake each morning ready to conquer the day, and then there are those of us who wake only because we have to. We live in the shadows of every neighborhood. We own corner stores, live in run-down apartments that get too little light, and walk the same streets day after day. We spend our afternoons gazing lazily out of windows. Somnambulists, all of us. Someone else said it better: we wake to sleep and sleep to wake.

from The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears
by Dinaw Mengestu
Riverhead Books, 2007

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

People believe in God because the world is very complicated and they think it is very unlikely that anything as complicated as a flying squirrel or the human eye or a brain could happen by chance. But they should think logically and if they thought logically they would see that they can only ask this question because it has already happened and they exist. And there are billions of planets where there is no life, but there is no one on those planets with brains to notice. And it is like if everyone in the world was tossing coins eventually someone would get 5,698 heads in a row and they would think they were very special. But they wouldn't be because there would be millions of people who didn't get 5,698 heads.

from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
by Mark Haddon
Doubleday, 2003

The Drop Edge of Yonder

"Man is not a shark, always moving forward. He moves backward. He holds his ground. By changing directions he avoids boredom, which, I submit, is the biggest curse of all."

from The Drop Edge of Yonder
by Rudolph Wurlitzer
Two Dollar Radio, 2008

Southland

"Love ain't something you feel, young lady. Love is something you do."

from Southland
by Nina Revoyr
Akashic Books, 2003

I Married an Earthling

Your parents should give you the money. It's no fair you have to construct your queer identity without any funds.

from I Married an Earthling
by Alvin Orloff
Manic D Press, 2000

Dirt Cheap

His mother smiled. "So have you been good, Nicky?"

He responded with a relaxed grin that showed a mouthful of crooked teeth. She knew him far too well for him to lie to her. "Hell, no." He climbed the first step up the bleachers. "But I did good."

from Dirt Cheap
by Lyn Miller-Lachmann
Curbstone Press, 2006

Zodiac

The big lie of American capitalism is that corporations work in their own best interests. In fact they're constantly doing things that will eventually bring them to their knees. Most of these blunders involve toxic chemicals that any competent chemist should know to be dangerous. They pump these things into the environment and don't even try to protect themselves. The evidence is right there in public, almost as if they'd printed up signed confessions and sprinkled them out of airplanes. Sooner or later, someone shows up in a Zodiac and points to that evidence, and the result is devastation far worse than what a terrorist, a Boone, could manage with bombs and guns.

from Zodiac
by Neal Stephenson
Atlantic Monthly Press, 1988

Cloud 8

No such day or miracle happened, of course. From the first priest who held my mom's hand in the first hospital room to the last in the last, disease took its own course, unabated by any torrent of words or holy water. The priests and preachers (even a rabbi once) delivered their words in the unequivocal form of a promise, and when that promise was so clearly not fulfilled, it seemed that each had a ready-made explanation handy for this obvious lack of results. "God works in mysterious ways," etc.

from Cloud 8
by Grant Bailie
Ig Publishing, 2003

Bandanas and October Supplies

Goddamn bookstores - they don't carry anything worth your while. The only thing they stock are big-shot books by big-shot writers.

from Bandanas and October Supplies
by M. Dylan Raskin
Thunder's Mouth Press, 2006

Ovenman

In terms of your life, make shit out of shit, make all the shit out of shit that your heart desires. Stick to what you're good at, well, what you do, your art.

from Ovenman
by Jeff Parker
Tin House Books, 2007

The Ministry of Fear

He believed against all the experience of life that somewhere there was justice, and justice condemned him. He analysed his motives minutely and always summed up against himself.

from The Ministry of Fear
by Graham Greene
Viking Penguin, 1943

Irrawaddy Tango

The gods have a way of mocking a prayer by answering some small portion of it.

from Irrawaddy Tango
by Wendy Law-Yone
Northwestern University Press, 2003

Governor of the Northern Province

The rest of the country had simply continued their low-intensity citizenship, treating another federal election like little more than a rush hour bus; it didn't matter if they missed this one, the next would chug along before they could finish muttering about all the noxious fumes left in the air by the last.

from Governor of the Northern Province
by Randy Boyagoda
Viking Canada, 2006

Paper

And when the stages of maceration and desiccation were over and the souls in these human envelopes were fled, a lingering odour was left among the living, which was exactly like the stink of paper-making, she said.

from Paper
by Bahiyyih Nakhjavani
Bloomsbury, 2004

The Mission Song

"Salvo," he would say, "take care. There are people out there whom God alone can love."

from The Mission Song
by John le Carré
Little, Brown, 2006

The Last Templar

I'm pretty sure Jesus didn't intend His revolution to become what it is today, and I can't imagine He would have liked His teachings to become the dogmatic and oppressive faith that grew up in His name. I mean, He was a freedom fighter who despised authority. How ironic is that?

from The Last Templar
by Raymond Khoury
Signet, 2006

Nietzsche's Kisses

...there are obviously too many books on the planet. Those you should read but never will and those you believe you should read but discover halfway through you were wrong about and those you read against your better judgment because your friends have recommended them except your friends are no longer your friends and the politeness of the initial act has devolved into an attrition of days.

from Nietzsche's Kisses
by Lance Olsen
FC2, 2006

Shadow Theatre

And some of it was rumor, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen, and it's not as if everything that happened ever became a story.

from Shadow Theatre
by Fiona Cheong
Soho Press, 2002

Moonrise, Sunset

There is no contradiction between religiosity and vanity. They may, in fact, be part of the same phenomenon.

from Moonrise, Sunset
by Gopal Baratham
Serpent's Tail, 1996