The memories were strange clingy things like burrs knotted in his hair. He could choose to let them be, he only felt them when he pulled them, and he could pretend they weren't there like positioning his head on a pillow so as not to notice the lumps against his scalp. But amidst the commotion of the parade—a strange cocoon—he recalled things sharply. He had a part in Dam leaving the palace, and ever since that point, his best friend was headed down a dangerous path.

When you touch a man's body, he will enjoy the moment, when you touch a man's heart he will remember it forever.

There are many of us who live alongside others, less fortunate, watching them go through everyday suffering for one reason or another, and we’re not moving even our little finger to help them. It’s in human nature, unfortunately: for the most part, the only people we genuinely care about are ourselves. However, once in a while we encounter different species, different kind of human beings among us: full of compassion, willing and wanting to help, and doing so with joy and happiness. Those are a rarity. But you know what, my dear? Being one of them is not a special calling- it’s a choice. So what will you choose, huh?

He had not been sleeping well over Christmas. Actually, he hadn’t been doing anything well over Christmas – eating, sleeping, exercising, talking, looking after himself, laughing, crying… No, he hadn’t really been crying despite all the pain he felt. It was just tearing him up inside, quietly. It was like his insides were being ripped up by an angered tiger.

Dear Diary: I have a confession to make: I’ve become a total idiot over French pastries. They’re my new favorite food. My new-found edible souvenir. My new favorite sin. Dunkin Donuts is so yesterday.

I think I knew from the first moment I met her, she would be the one to replace me. I didn't think it would happen that fast, but it did.

It was late morning when he woke and found the telephone beside his bed in the hotel tolling frantically, and remembered that he had left word to be called at eleven. Sloane was snoring heavily, his clothes in a pile by his bed. They dressed and ate breakfast in silence, and then sauntered out to get some air. Amory's mind was working slowly, trying to assimilate what had happened and separate from the chaotic imagery that stacked his memory the bare shreds of truth. If the morning had been cold and gray he could have grasped the reins of the past in an instant, but it was one of those days that New York gets sometimes in May, when the air of Fifth Avenue is a soft, light wine. How much or how little Sloane remembered Amory did not care to know; he apparently had none of the nervous tension that was gripping Amory and forcing his mind back and forth like a shrieking saw.

When we became teenagers boredom grew like a moth in a cocoon fighting to escape, and the peace created by our parents became a prison. We sought excitement and adventure. We sought anything but the sinless, pure, and average of the faux idyllic.

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience but spiritual beings having a human experience.

I see the same sky above me, the same stars and moon, but nothing will ever be the same for me, because I love you.” Whoever said love was grand evidently had never been in love.

True love is what makes life worth living.

I guess I'd rather have a truthful neighbor who says he hates me than a lyin' one who claims he loves me.

Yessir, some things is sin 'cause God says so. Some things is sin 'cause they hurt other people. And some things is just pure-dee stupid.

I'm going to turn my life around. Make a complete three sixty.""Don't you mean one eighty?" he corrected. "If you do that, you'll end up right back where you started.""Maybe. But at least I'll have a chance of coming out of it a different person - a better version of me.

She might have been there for you in the aftermath, but I was there when everything came crashing down.

Congratulations," she said. "You win.

All our good and bad memories—they were like our B-side diaries. They were like those songs on old dusty punk albums that no one listened to anymore.

My illusion, the idea of a soul mate, was so entrenched in my fantasy that the thought of letting him go, wrecked me.

He lies there listening to it, absorbing this sense of his own quiet drone transmuted into something of certain substance, something large, magnificent and grand—no longer him, no, but something bursting from him, leaving his split carcass behind as a monument to its source, its host, its feeding ground.

Oh yes, he's seen the black pupils of time's eyes. Two dark drains in a pair of dirty gas station bathroom sinks. The faucet's open and he's gurgling down the pipes, gushing toward whatever tank he's bound to swirl around in for the rest of his life. There's no telling from here if that's a realm of purification or of shit. There's only one way to find out, and that's to ride it all the way down.

This is the fairytale of my life, the mythology of my existence, and, as I only have one story to tell, there is only one way to tell it. You may find it a little melodramatic at moments and you may not like who I was at times. But, princes frequently start out as frogs and, perhaps, by the time I reach my end, you will understand why. And so, as we all must have a beginning, a middle and an end, I will start at the beginning. Once upon a time...

The morning after my mother’s death, I was surprised to see the sunrise. From behind the curtain of my bedroom window I was surprised to see the people leave their homes and begin the day. Downstairs, the hands of the grandfather clock continued to tick, marking each passing hour with a chime that echoed over the black and white chessboard tiles of the front hall. I was surprised to see the mail come at the same time as the day before and, later that evening, the sun set once more as it did since the beginning of time. My mother’s death did not disturb the planets in their courses. And, though everything kept moving like she never existed at all, my world erupted into chaos until the universe swirled around me like a whirlpool of scattering stars.

It feels like I’m trapped in quicksand. The more I struggle, the more I sink. So I stop struggling. I stop trying to free myself; because the more I struggle the scarier it becomes. Then—and only then did panic yield long enough for a numbness to spread and stick to me like a second skin.

45,000 sections of reinforced concrete—three tons each.Nearly 300 watchtowers.Over 250 dog runs.Twenty bunkers.Sixty five miles of anti-vehicle trenches—signal wire, barbed wire, beds of nails.Over 11,000 armed guards.A death strip of sand, well-raked to reveal footprints.200 ordinary people shot dead following attempts to escape the communist regime.96 miles of concrete wall.Not your typical holiday destination.JF Kennedy said the Berlin Wall was a better option than a war. In TDTL, the Anglo-German Bishop family from the pebbledashed English suburb of Oaking argue about this—among other—notions while driving to Cold War Berlin, through all the border checks, with a plan to visit both sides of it.

There are many of us who live alongside others, less fortunate, watching them go through everyday suffering for one reason or another, and we’re not moving even our little finger to help them. It’s in human nature, unfortunately: for the most part, the only people we genuinely care about are ourselves. However, once in a while we encounter different species, different kind of human beings among us: full of compassion, willing and wanting to help, and doing so with joy and happiness. Those are a rarity. But you know what, my dear? Being one of them is not a special calling- it’s a choice. So what will you choose, huh?