Raisin Quotes

Stay,” she panted. Tears leaked from her eyes. “Stay till the end.” “And after,” he said. “And always.” “I want to feel safe again. I want to go home to Ravka.” “Then I’ll take you there. We’ll set fire to raisins or whatever you heathens do for fun.” “Zealot,” she said weakly. “Witch.” “Barbarian.” “Nina,” he whispered, “little red bird. Don’t go.

This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it." [Women Know Everything!]

Harlem What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?

Right now I would give all the yogurt raisins in all the world for a heart made of ice.

the chocolate raisins tasted somewhat fishy, but Lucy didn't care-chocolate was chocolate. She changed her mind however, when she realized that the raisins were tiny fish heads.

Every gay man out there has at least one man-crush in his past that totally shriveled his nads into raisins and sent him screaming off into the night.

Never was a cornflake girl; Thought it was a good solution: hanging with the raisin girls.

Inject a few raisins of conversation into the tasteless dough of existence

I want to fly! I want to touch the sun!" "Finish your eggs first.

Oh my. He's English. "Er. Does Mer live here?" Seriously, I don't know any American girl who can resist an English accent. The boy clears his throat. "Meredith Chevalier? Tall girl? Big, curly hair?" Then he looks at me like I'm crazy or half deaf, like my Nana Oliphant. Nanna just smiles and shakes her head whenever I ask, "What kind of salad dressing would you like?" or "Where did you put Granddad's false teeth?" "I'm sorry." He takes the smallest step away from me. "You were going to bed." "Yes! Meredith lives here. I've just spent two hours with her." I announce this proudly like my little brother, Seany, whenever he finds something disgusting in the yard. "I'm Anna! I'm new here!" Oh, [Gosh]. What. Is with. The scary enthusiasm? My cheeks catch fire, and it's all so humiliating. The beautiful boy gives an amused grin. His teeth are lovely - straight on top and crooked on the bottom, with a touch of overbite. I'm a sucker for smiles like this, due to my own lack of orthodontia. I have a gap between my front teeth the size of a raisin. "Étienne," he says. "I live one floor up." "I live here." I point dumbly at my room while my mind whirs: French name, English accent, American school. Anna confused. He raps twice on Meredith's door. "Well. I'll see you around then, Anna." Eh-t-yen says my name like this: Ah-na.

Stay till the end. " "And after, and always." "I want to feel safe again. I want to go home to Ravka. " "Then I'll take you there. We'll set fire to raisins or whatever you heathens do for fun. " "Zealot." "Witch." "Barbarian.

On Sunday morning I went out for a while in the neighbourhood; I bought some raisin bread. The day was warm but a little sad, as Sundays often are in Paris, especially when one doesn't believe in God.

This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it.

The poison dart hidden in the raisin tart. ...

What happens to a dream deferred? / Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?

You can come share a tasty meal of bread, raisins, and fresh cheese. With that, and The Count of Monte Cristo, anyone can live to a hundred.

STAY HOME FROM SCHOOL FAUX VOMIT: 1 cup of cooked oatmeal 1.2 cup of sour cream (or buttermilk ranch dressing or anything that smells like rancid, sour milk) 2 chopped cheese sticks (for chunkiness) 1 uncooked egg (for authentic slimy texture) 1 can of split pea soup (for putrid green color) 1/4 cup of raisins (to increase gross-osity) Mix ingredients and simmer over low heat for 2 minutes Let mixture cool to warm vomit temperature Use liberally as needed Makes 4 to 5 cups

Beneatha: Love him? There is nothing left to love. Mama: There is always something left to love. And if you ain't learned that, you ain't learned nothing. (Looking at her) Have you cried for that boy today? I don't mean for yourself and for the family 'cause we lost the money. I mean for him: what he been through and what it done to him. Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most? When they done good and made things easy for everybody? Well then, you ain't through learning - because that ain't the time at all. It's when he's at his lowest and can't believe in hisself 'cause the world done whipped him so! when you starts measuring somebody, measure him right, child, measure him right. Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valleys he come through before he got to wherever he is.

It's dangerous, son." "What's dangerous?" "When a man goes outside his house to look for peace.

Mama--Mama--I want so many things... I want so many things that they are driving me kind of crazy...

I don't believe in prom,' I reminded her as she rounded a corner. I expertly angled my raisin bran to accomodate the g-forces. I'd done this before.

Those dripping crumpets, I can see them now. Tiny crisp wedges of toast, and piping-hot, flaky scones. Sandwiches of unknown nature, mysteriously flavoured and quite delectable, and that very special gingerbread. Angel cake, that melted in the mouth, and his rather stodgier companion, bursting with peel and raisins. There was enough food there to keep a starving family for a week.

My life is too lonely without fictional people crowding my mind.

Beneatha: You didn't tell us what Alaiyo means... for all I know, you might be calling me Little Idiot or something... ... Asagai: It means... it means One for Whom Bread--Food--Is Not Enough.

Clever plastic surgery can restore an appearance of youth, but nothing changes the expression of age and experience in the eyes.

Seem like God didn't see fit to give the black man nothing but dreams -but He did give us children to make them dreams seem worth while.

Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most? When they done good and made things easy for everybody? Well then, you ain't through learning-because that ain't the time at all...when you starts measuring somebody, measure him right, child, measure him right. Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valleys he come through before he got to wherever he is.

A lady is as young as the gentleman she feels," said Roy and cackled happily.

It isn't a circle--it is simply a long line--as in geometry, you know, one that reaches into infinity. And because we cannot see the end--we also cannot see how it changes. And it is very odd by those who see the changes--who dream, who will not give up--are called idealists...and those who see only the circle we call them the "realists"!

Strawberry milk,” I say, eyeing him as we head toward the counter. “Really.” He turns to me. “Do you have something to say about my snack selections?” “Nope.” I fall into line behind him. “I just didn’t realize you were a middle-school girl going to a slumber party.” “And I,” he says, plunking his strawberry-fest down on the counter, “didn’t realize you were a soccer mom justifying her chocolate craving with the fact that raisins are a fruit.

When did they stop putting toys in cereal boxes? When I was little, I remember wandering the cereal aisle (which surely is as American a phenomenon as fireworks on the Fourth of July) and picking my breakfast food based on what the reward was: a Frisbee with the Trix rabbit's face emblazoned on the front. Holographic stickers with the Lucky Charms leprechaun. A mystery decoder wheel. I could suffer through raisin bran for a month if it meant I got a magic ring at the end. I cannot admit this out loud. In the first place, we are expected to be supermoms these days, instead of admitting that we have flaws. It is tempting to believe that all mothers wake up feeling fresh every morning, never raise their voices, only cook with organic food, and are equally at ease with the CEO and the PTA. Here's a secret: those mothers don't exist. Most of us-even if we'd never confess-are suffering through the raisin bran in the hopes of a glimpse of that magic ring. I look very good on paper. I have a family, and I write a newspaper column. In real life, I have to pick superglue out of the carpet, rarely remember to defrost for dinner, and plan to have BECAUSE I SAID SO engraved on my tombstone. Real mothers wonder why experts who write for Parents and Good Housekeeping-and, dare I say it, the Burlington Free Press-seem to have their acts together all the time when they themselves can barely keep their heads above the stormy seas of parenthood. Real mothers don't just listen with humble embarrassment to the elderly lady who offers unsolicited advice in the checkout line when a child is throwing a tantrum. We take the child, dump him in the lady's car, and say, "Great. Maybe YOU can do a better job." Real mothers know that it's okay to eat cold pizza for breakfast. Real mothers admit it is easier to fail at this job than to succeed. If parenting is the box of raisin bran, then real mothers know the ratio of flakes to fun is severely imbalanced. For every moment that your child confides in you, or tells you he loves you, or does something unprompted to protect his brother that you happen to witness, there are many more moments of chaos, error, and self-doubt. Real mothers may not speak the heresy, but they sometimes secretly wish they'd chosen something for breakfast other than this endless cereal. Real mothers worry that other mothers will find that magic ring, whereas they'll be looking and looking for ages. Rest easy, real mothers. The very fact that you worry about being a good mom means that you already are one.

Raisins are healthy, and they are inexpensive, and some people may even find them delicious. But they are rarely considered helpful.

Pervy and redundant, don't you think?" I asked the big gay cop, who wouldn't know a va-jay-jay if it bounced up to him and sang the "Star-Spangled Banner." (You ever notice that hardly anything besides the "Star-Spangled Banner" is spangled? There's no, like, the Raisin-Spangled Scone, or the Flea-Spangled Beagle. I'm just saying.) --Being the Journal of Abby Normal

Something always told me I wasn't no rich white woman.

In those days I still believed the love of a man for a woman and a woman for a man was stronger than the love of drinkin and hell-raisin—that love would eventually rise to the top like cream in a bottle of milk. I learned better over the next ten years. The world’s a sorry schoolroom sometimes, ain’t it?

MAMA (Quietly, woman to woman) He finally come into his manhood today, didn’t he? Kind of like a rainbow after the rain… RUTH (Biting her lip, lest her own pride explode in front of Mama) Yes, Lena.

How we gets to the place where we scared to talk softness to each other.

How big are muffins going to get before we all join hands across America? Have you seen them? They're huge. "Yeah, I'll take a coffee and... Oh, my God! Yeah, I'll have the beanbag chair with raisins.

Sorry, Keys, but raisins are the result of nature taking a shit.

Mind your own business, you goddamn raisin with legs!" Taran screamed from inside the house.

You'd forgive me for Claire - but not for killing your . . . men." He glanced at the two Craddocks, spotty as a pair of raisin puddings and - Grey's look implied - likely no brighter.

Perhaps I will be a great man...I mean perhaps I will hold on to the substance of truth and find my way always with the right course

Things I will never like: 1. Drying off with a cold, damp towel. 2. The feeling of seaweed wrapping around my legs. 3. Anything that was popular in the 70's. 4. Licorice, yam, or raisins. 5. That high-pitched screech that babies make. 6. Writhing maggots.

DAMN MY EGGS! DAMN ALL THE EGGS THAT EVER WAS!" -Wilson

[Beneatha Younger:]... He said everybody ought to learn how to sit down and hate each other with good Chrisitan fellowship. [excerpt from Act II, Scene 3]

But if you like, you can come share a tasty meal of bread, raisins, and fresh Burgos cheese. With that, and The Count of Monte Cristo, anyone can live to a hundred.

Her name just HAD to be Karen,’ Sonny says. ‘Bet she puts raisins in her potato salad.’ I smirk, and we cross our arms over our chests. Wakanda forever.

At least books could never let you down.

This particular book felt familiar, like an old friend. The characters drew me into their world, and I blocked out mine for the rest of the afternoon.

I'm just tired of hearing about God all the time. What has He got to do with anything?... I'm not going to be immoral or commit crimes because I don't believe. I don't even think about that. I just get so tired of Him getting the credit for things the human race achieves through its own effort. Now, there simply is no God. There's only man. And it's he who makes miracles.

Mama, you don’t understand. It’s all a matter of ideas, and God is just one idea I don’t acept. It’s not important. I am not going out and commit crimes or be immoral because I don’t believe in God. I don’t even think about it. It’s just that I get so tired of Him getting credit for all the things the human race achieves through its own stubborn effort. There simply is no God! There is only Man, and it’s he who makes miracles!

Ah, when love dies, women lose two and a half inches in height.

Raisins again. I like raisins, but I have a habit of losing one or two on the floor every time I eat them. I always find them later and think they are: a) a mouse turd or b) a cockroach. Then I figure out it's a raisin and sigh with relief. This pretty much happens every time I find a lost raisin.

Life is full of sacrifices. Let them be for something.

If the fire was too hot, you could hardly keep the pudding from scorching by tossing a handful of raisins in the pot.

We've only been sitting here forty minutes. I'm never at the morning table less than an hour and a half. I do some of my finest plotting over breakfast coffee and raisin brioche.

Cigars, of course, are made of trail mix, of crushed cashews and Granola and raisins, soaked in maple syrup and dried in the sun. Why not eat one tonight at bedtime?

There, there, sweetin’,” he murmured into her hair. “He loved me, he truly did,” she gasped. “I know he did,” Michael said. “And I loved him.” “Mm-hmm.” She raised her head, glaring angrily. “You don’t even believe in love. Why are you agreeing with me?” He laughed. “Because”—he leaned down and licked at the tears on her cheeks, his lips brushing softly against her sensitive skin as he spoke, “ye’ve bewitched and bespelled me, my sweet Silence, didn’t ye know? I’ll agree that the sky is pink, that the moon is made o’ marzipan and sugared raisins, and that mermaids swim the muddy waters o’ the Thames, if ye’ll only stop weepin’. Me chest breaks apart and gapes wide open when I see tears in yer pretty eyes. Me lungs, me liver, and me heart cannot stand to be thus exposed.” She stopped breathing. She simply inhaled and stopped, looking at him in wonder. His lips were quirked in a mocking smile, but his eyes—his fathomless black eyes—seemed to hold a great pain as if his strong chest really had been split open.

When I was a young man and very well thought of, I couldn't ask aught that the ladies denied. I nibbled their hearts like a handful of raisins, And I never spoke love but I knew that I lied. But I said to myself, 'Ah, they none of them know The secret I shelter and savor and save I wait for the one who will see through my seeming, And I'll know when I love by the way I behave.' The years drifted over like clouds in the heavens; The ladies went by me like snow on the wind. I charmed and I cheated, deceived and dissembled, And I sinned, and I sinned, and I sinned, and I sinned. But I said to myself, 'Ah, they none of them see There's part of me pure as the whisk of a wave. My lady is late but she'll find I've been faithful, And I'll know when I love by the way I behave.' At last came a lady both knowing and tender, Saying, 'you're not at all what they take you to be.' I betrayed her before she had quite finished speaking, And she swallowed cold poison and jumped in the sea. And I say to myself when there's time for a word, As I gracefully grow more debauched and depraved, 'Ah, love may be strong, but a habit is stronger And I knew when I loved by the way I behaved.

Poke had never shared out so many raisins, because she had never had so many to share. But the little kids wouldn't understand that. They'd think, Poke gave us garbage, and Achilles gave us raisins. That's because they were stupid.

Well, I’m going to say goodbye. There’s only so much my ego can take. This was a great growth experience but I can’t say I’m eager to stand around and marinate in it. Please don’t come buy your muffin from me tomorrow. I hope wherever you do buy one, it has raisins in it.

In Russia, as I sat there day after day wearing headphones, listening to the interpreter struggle to make our words relevant, I wondered if we could establish meaningful rapport with a nation that had never seen raisins dance in dark glasses on TV...never had a garage sale.

What you ain't never understood is that I ain't got nothing, don't own nothing, ain't never really wanted nothing that wasn't for you. There ain't nothing as precious to me...There ain't nothing worth holding on to, money, dreams, nothing else--

Cause sometimes it's hard to let the future begin!

A grape falls off a vine...and dries. Everything happens for a raisin

We know,” Nudge said apologetically. “It’s just—she’s going to make sweet potatoes with raisins and little marshmallows on top.

Then the Skopamish showed up. Their chests heaving, rotting eyes like dull raisins in their skulls. Their eyes found mine like a witching wand seeking water.

Empty orators and silent scholars died without having understood Being and non-Being. Ignorants, my brothers, let us continue tasting the juice of the grape attentively and let the authorities satisfy themselves with dry raisins.

(With feminine vengeance)

A kiss can be dreadfully terrifying for the males of our species, I'm afraid." Rose said knowingly. "Sex is easy. All they really need is a few good thrusts. But when they kiss, they open themselves up and let you in. And that, my dear, makes some men's balls shrink to the size of raisins." Shelley snorted with laughter. Dex strode up to her. "Did someone say raisins? I'm starving." "You might try asking Max for some," Shelley said. "I'm sure he has at least two.

Maybe some people were destined to be alone. But, I reminded myself, you're never alone if you read.

The other diners studied him with the polite frozen smiles the English use for threatening behaviour.

And not wretched sausages half full of bread and soya bean either, but real meaty, spicy ones, fat and piping hot and burst and just the tiniest bit burnt. And great mugs of frothy chocolate, and roast potatoes and roast chestnuts, and baked apples with raisins stuck in where the cores had been, and then ices just to freshen you up after all the hot things.

One of the odder services the Villa Candessa provided for its long-term guests was its “likeness cakes”—little frosted simulacra fashioned after the guests by the inn’s Camorr-trained pastry sculptor. On a silver tray beside the looking glass, a little sweetbread Locke (with raisin eyes and almond-butter blond hair) sat beside a rounder Jean with dark chocolate hair and beard. The baked Jean’s legs were already missing. A few moments later, Jean was brushing the last buttery crumbs from the front of his coat. “Alas, poor Locke and Jean.” “They died of consumption,” said Locke.

His name has to be Wrayson. Say it slow. Ray-sin. Rays-in. It's a double meaning--Gil Wrayson is undergoing a transformation. And he has to let the rays of sunlight in--those rays of sunlight coming in the form of Tiny's songs--in order to become his true self--no longer a plum, but a sun-soaked raisin. Don't you see?

Spartacus," I called, "how's it hanging?" Probably not too well. Once you're dead, had your organs removed, and are resurrected as an undead mummified cat, your testicles probably looked like old raisins that had rolled under the couch. Raisins didn't tend to...hang.

We got peanut butter and jelly, peanut butter and raisins, and a delicate peanut butter/peanut butter combination. These come crunchy or smooth, on Wonder Bread, hand-squished flat on the plate or not, as you prefer. The special today is our famous peanut butter and banana sandwich. It comes on Wonder Bread, cut diagonal on the plate, with crust or without. What can I start you with?

And the City, in its own way, gets down for you, cooperates, smoothing its sidewalks, correcting its curbstones, offering you melons and green apples on the corner. Racks of yellow head scarves; strings of Egyptian beads. Kansas fried chicken and something with raisins call attention to an open window where the aroma seems to lurk. And if that's not enough, doors to speakeasies stand ajar and in that cool dark place a clarinet coughs and clears its throat waiting for the woman to decide on the key. She makes up her mind and as you pass by informs your back that she is daddy's little angel child. The City is smart at this: smelling and good and looking raunchy; sending secret messages disguised as public signs: this way, open here, danger to let colored only single men on sale woman wanted private room stop dog on premises absolutely no money down fresh chicken free delivery fast. And good at opening locks, dimming stairways. Covering your moans with its own.

MAMA: You must not dislike people ’cause they well off, honey. BENEATHA: Why not? It makes just as much sense as disliking people ’cause they are poor, and lots of people do that.

My inspiration for writing music is like Don McLean did when he did "American Pie" or "Vincent". Lorraine Hansberry with "A Raisin in the Sun". Like Shakespeare when he does his thing, like deep stories, raw human needs. I'm trying to think of a good analogy. It's like, you've got the Vietnam War, and because you had reporters showing us pictures of the war at home, that's what made the war end, or that shit would have lasted longer. If no one knew what was going on we would have thought they were just dying valiantly in some beautiful way. But because we saw the horror, that's what made us stop the war. So I thought, that's what I'm going to do as an artist, as a rapper. I'm gonna show the most graphic details of what I see in my community and hopefully they'll stop it quick. I've seen all of that-- the crack babies, what we had to go through, losing everything, being poor, and getting beat down. All of that. Being the person I am, I said no no no no. I'm changing this.

My to-be-read pile sadly would most likely outlive me - though I tried valiantly to catch up with it, I'd never get there. The allure of new books, new writers, characters who beckoned to me would never wane.

Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most? When he’s done good and made things easy for everybody? That ain’t the time at all. It’s when he’s at his lowest……and he can’t believe in himself because the world’s whipped him so!

Time cleaning was less time reading, so I usually just did the minimal amount, and left it for another day, a day that would never come.

Agatha had that old feeling of being on the outside of life looking in.

It was easier to hide behind the cover of my books, and I found happiness there.

You aimin' to go the full circle now? How long before I have to come get you up from the sidewalks? You got hurt and pain in you? Well, I used to know a man who knew how to live with his pain and make his hurt work for him. Your daddy died with dignity; there wasn't no bum in him. And he known some hurts in this life you ain't never even heard of!

What would you think of an engineer who expounded the art of flying without revealing the secrets of the engine and propeller? That's what you do, you engineer of the human soul. Just that. You're a coward. You want the raisins out of my cake but you don't want the thorns of my roses. Haven't you too, little psychiatrist, been cracking silly jokes about me? Haven't you ridiculed me as "the prophet of bigger and better orgasms"? Have you never heard the whimpering of a young wife whose body has been desecrated by an impotent husband? Or the anguished cry of an adolescent bursting with unfulfilled love? Does your security still mean more to you than your patient? How long will you go on valuing your respectability above your medical mission? How long will you refuse to see that your pussyfooting procrastination is costing millions their lives?

....the Crocodiles say they can't even begin to say how many new guys they've seen Come In and then get sucked back Out There, Come In to AA for a while and Hang In and put together a little sober time and have things start to get better, head-wise and life-quality-wise, and after a while the new guys get cocky, they decide they've gotten `Well,' and they get really busy at the new job sobriety's allowed them to get, or maybe they buy season Celtics tickets, or they rediscover pussy and start chasing pussy (these withered gnarled toothless totally post-sexual old fuckers actually say pussy), but one way or another these poor cocky clueless new bastards start gradually drifting away from rabid Activity In The Group, and then away from their Group itself, and then little by little gradually drift away from any AA meetings at all, and then, without the protection of meetings or a Group, in time--oh there's always plenty of time, the Disease is fiendishly patient--how in time they forget what it was like, the ones that've cockily drifted, they forget who and what they are, they forget about the Disease, until like one day they're at like maybe a Celtics-Sixers game, and the good old Fleet/First Interstate Center's hot, and they think what could just one cold foamer hurt, after all this sober time, now that they've gotten `Well.' Just one cold one. What could it hurt. And after that one it's like they'd never stopped, if they've got the Disease. And how in a month or six months or a year they have to Come Back In, back to the Boston AA halls and their old Group, tottering, D.T.ing, with their faces hanging down around their knees all over again, or maybe it's five or ten years before they can get it up to get back In, beaten to shit again, or else their system isn't ready for the recurred abuse again after some sober time and they die Out There--the Crocodiles are always talking in hushed, 'Nam-like tones about Out There--or else, worse, maybe they kill somebody in a blackout and spend the rest of their lives in MCI-Walpole drinking raisin jack fermented in the seatless toilet and trying to recall what they did to get in there, Out There; or else, worst of all, these cocky new guys drift back Out There and have nothing sufficiently horrible to Finish them happen at all, just go back to drinking 24/7/365, to not-living, behind bars, undead, back in the Disease's cage all over again. The Crocodiles talk about how they can't count the number of guys that've Come In for a while and drifted away and gone back Out There and died, or not gotten to die.

Les feuilles tombent, la figue sèche, remplace la figue fraîche, le raisin sec la grappe mûre, voilà selon toi des paroles de mauvaise augure ! Mais il n’y a là que la transformation d’états antérieurs en d’autres ; il n’y a pas de destruction, mais un aménagement et une disposition bien réglée. L’émigration n’est qu’un petit changement. La mort en est un plus grand, mais il ne va pas de l’être actuel au non-être, mais au non-être de l’être actuel. Alors ne serais-je plus ? Tu ne seras pas ce que tu es mais autre chose dont le monde aura alors besoin.

Then isn't this rather all a false funeral? Can't it help you to see that there is something wrong when all the dreams in this house-good or bad-had to depend on something that might never have happened if a man had not died? We always say at home: Accident was at the first and will be at the last a poor tree from which the fruits of life may bloom.

Dinner was wonderful. There was a joint of beef, with roast potatoes, golden-crisp on the outside and soft and white inside, buttered greens I did not recognize, although I think now that they might have been nettles, toasted carrots all blackened and sweet (I did not think that I liked cooked carrots, so I nearly did not eat one but I was brave, and I tried it, and I liked it, and was disappointed in boiled carrots for the rest of my childhood.) For dessert there was the pie, stuffed with apples and with swollen raisins and crushed nuts, all topped with a thick yellow custard, creamier and richer than anything I had ever tasted at school or at home. The kitten slept on a cushion beside the fire, until the end of the meal, when it joined a fog-colored house cat four times its size in a meal of scraps of meat.

I will go home and much of what I will have to say will seem strange to the people of my village... But I will teach and work and things will happen, slowly and swiftly. At times it will seem that nothing changes at all... and then again... the sudden dramatic events which make history leap into the future. And then quiet again. Retrogression even. Guns, murder, revolution. And I even will have moments when I wonder if the quiet was not better than all that death and hatred. But I will look about my village at the illiteracy and disease and ignorance and will not wonder long. And perhaps... perhaps I will be a great man... I mean perhaps I will hold on to the substance of truth and find my way always with the right course... and perhaps for it I will be butchered in my bed some night by the servants of empire... ...perhaps the things I believe now for my country will be wrong and outmoded, and I will not understand and do terrible things to have things my way or merely to keep my power. Don't you see that there will be young men and women, not British soldiers then, but my own black countrymen... to step out of the shadows some evening and slit my then useless throat? Don't you see they have always been there... that they always will be. And that such a thing as my own death will be an advance? They who might kill me even... actually replenish me!

He listened to the hooting of many metal horns, squealing of brakes, the calls of vendors selling red-purple bananas and jungle oranges in their stalls. Colonel Freeleigh's feet began to move, hanging from the edge of his wheel chair, making the motions of a man walking. His eyes squeezed tight. He gave a series of immense sniffs, as if to gain the odors of meats hung on iron hooks in sunshine, cloaked with flies like a mantle of raisins; the smell of stone alleys wet with morning rain. He could feel the sun bum his spiny-bearded cheek, and he was twenty-five years old again, walking, walking, looking, smiling, happy to be alive, very much alert, drinking in colors and smells.

Within five minutes of leaving the reunion, I'd undone the double wrapping and eaten all six rugelach, each a snail of sugar-dusted pastry dough, the cinnamon-lined chambers microscopically studded with midget raisins and chopped walnuts. By rapidly devouring mouthful after mouthful of these crumbs whose floury richness - blended of butter and sour cream and vanilla and cream cheese and egg yolk and sugar - I'd loved since childhood, perhaps I'd find vanishing from Nathan what, according to Proust, vanished from Marcel the instant he recognized "the savour of the little madeleine": the apprehensiveness of death. "A mere taste," Proust writes, and "the word 'death' ... [has] ... no meaning for him." So, greedily I ate, gluttonously, refusing to curtail for a moment this wolfish intake of saturated fat, but, in the end, having nothing like Marcel's luck.

He’d decided to keep a journal in the hope that this might help. He looked at the recent entries. Probably Tuesday: hot, flies. Dinner: honey ants. Attacked by honey ants. Fell into waterhole. Wednesday, with any luck: hot, flies. Dinner: either bush raisins or kangaroo droppings. Chased by hunters, don’t know why. Fell into waterhole. Thursday (could be): hot, flies. Dinner: blue-tongued lizard. Savaged by blue-tongued lizard. Chased by different hunters. Fell off cliff, bounced into tree, pissed on by small grey incontinent teddy bear, landed in a waterhole. Friday: hot, flies. Dinner: some kind of roots which tasted like sick. This saved time. Saturday: hotter than yesterday, extra flies. V. thirsty. Sunday: hot. Delirious with thirst and flies. Nothing but nothing as far as the eye can see, with bushes in it. Decided to die, collapsed, fell down sand dune into waterhole.

Sweetheart," West murmured kindly, "listen to me. There's no need to worry. You'll either meet someone new, or you'll reconsider someone you didn't appreciate at first. Some men are an acquired taste. Like oysters, or Gorgonzola cheese." She let out a shuddering sigh. "Cousin West, if I haven't married by the time I'm twenty-five... and you're still a bachelor... would you be my oyster?" West looked at her blankly. "Let's agree to marry each other someday," she continued, "if no one else wants us. I would be a good wife. All I've ever dreamed of is having my own little family, and a happy home where everyone feels safe and welcome. You know I never nag or slam doors or sulk in corners. I just need someone to take care of. I want to matter to someone. Before you refuse-" "Lady Cassandra Ravenel," West interrupted, "that is the most idiotic idea anyone's come up with since Napoleon decided to invade Russia." Her gaze turned reproachful. "Why?" "Among a dizzying array of reasons, you're too young for me." "You're no older than Lord St. Vincent, and he just married my twin." "I'm older than him on the inside, by decades. My soul is a raisin. Take my word for it, you don't want to be my wife." "It would be better than being lonely." "What rubbish. 'Alone' and 'lonely' are entirely different things." West reached out to smooth back a dangling golden curl that had stuck against a drying tear track on her cheek. "Now, go bathe your face in cool water, and-" "I'll be your oyster," Tom broke in.

You ought to make something for Easter. You know. Eggs and stuff. Chocolate hens, rabbits, things like that. Like the shops in Agen." I remember them from my childhood; the Paris chocolateries with their baskets of foil-wrapped eggs, shelves of rabbits and hens, bells, marzipan fruits and marrons glacés, amourettes and filigree nests filled with petits fours and caramels, and a thousand and one epiphanies of spun-sugar magic carpet rides more suited to an Arabian harem than the solemnities of the Passion. "I remember my mother telling me about the Easter chocolates." There was never enough money to buy those exquisite things, but I always had my own cornet-surprise, a paper cone containing my Easter gifts, coins, paper flowers, hard-boiled eggs painted in bright enamel colors, a box of colored papier-mâché- painted with chickens, bunnies, smiling children among the buttercups, the same every year and stored carefully for the next time- encasing a tiny packet of chocolate raisins wrapped in cellophane, each one to be savored, long and lingeringly, in the lost hours of those strange nights between cities, with the neon glow of hotel signs blink-blinking between the shutters and my mother's breathing, slow and somehow eternal, in the umbrous silence.

See you at breakfast?" "Yeah.See ya." I try to say this casually,but I'm so thrilled that I skip from her room and promptly slam into a wall. Whoops.Not a wall.A boy. "Oof." He staggers backward. "Sorry! I'm so sorry,I didn't know you were there." He shakes his head,a little dazed. The first thing I notice is his hair-it's the first thing I notice about everyone. It's dark brown and messy and somehow both long and short at the same time. I think of the Beatles,since I've just seen them in Meredith's room. It's artist hair.Musician hair. I-pretend-I-don't-care-but-I-really-do-hair. Beautiful hair. "It's okay,I didn't see you either. Are you all right,then?" Oh my.He's English. "Er.Does Mer live here?" Seriously,I don't know any American girl who can resist an English accent. The boy clears his throat. "Meredith Chevalier? Tall girl? Big,curly hair?" Then he looks at me like I'm crazy or half deaf,like my Nanna Oliphant. Nanna just smiles and shakes her head whenever I ask, "What kind of salad dressing would you like?" or "Where did you put Granddad's false teeth?" "I'm sorry." He takes the smallest step away from me. "You were going to bed." "Yes! Meredith lives there.I've just spent two hours with her." I announce this proudly like my brother, Seany, whenever he finds something disgusting in the yard. "I'm Anna! I'm new here!" Oh God. What.Is with.The scary enthusiasm? My cheeks catch fire, and it's all so humiliating. The beautiful boy gives an amused grin. His teeth are lovely-straight on top and crooked on the bottom,with a touch of overbite. I'm a sucker for smiles like this,due to my own lack of orthodontia. I have a gap between my front teeth the size of a raisin. "Etienne," he says. "I live one floor up." "I live here." I point dumbly at my room while my mind whirs: French name, English accent, American school. Anna confused. He raps twice on Meredith's door. "Well. I'll see you around then, Anna." Eh-t-yen says my name like this: Ah-na. My heart thump thump thumps in my chest.

Second hand books had so much life in them. They'd lived, sometimes in many homes, or maybe just one. They'd been on airplanes, traveled to sunny beaches, or crowded into a backpack and taken high up a mountain where the air thinned. "Some had been held aloft tepid rose-scented baths, and thickened and warped with moisture. Others had child-like scrawls on the acknowledgement page, little fingers looking for a blank space to leave their mark. Then there were the pristine novels, ones that had been read carefully, bookmarks used, almost like their owner barely pried the pages open so loathe were they to damage their treasure. I loved them all. And I found it hard to part with them. Though years of book selling had steeled me. I had to let them go, and each time made a fervent wish they'd be read well, and often. Missy, my best friend, said I was completely cuckoo, and that I spent too much time alone in my shadowy shop, because I believed my books communicated with me. A soft sigh here, as they stretched their bindings when dawn broke, or a hum, as they anticipated a customer hovering close who might run a hand along their cover, tempting them to flutter their pages hello. Books were fussy when it came to their owners, and gave off a type of sound, an almost imperceptible whirr, when the right person was near. Most people weren't aware that books chose us, at the time when we needed them.

WALTER (Gathering him up in his arms) You know what, Travis? In seven years you going to be seventeen years old. And things is going to be very different with us in seven years, Travis. … One day when you are seventeen I’ll come home—home from my office downtown somewhere— TRAVIS You don’t work in no office, Daddy. WALTER No—but after tonight. After what your daddy gonna do tonight, there’s going to be offices—a whole lot of offices.… TRAVIS What you gonna do tonight, Daddy? WALTER You wouldn’t understand yet, son, but your daddy’s gonna make a transaction … a business transaction that’s going to change our lives. … That’s how come one day when you ’bout seventeen years old I’ll come home and I’ll be pretty tired, you know what I mean, after a day of conferences and secretaries getting things wrong the way they do … ’cause an executive’s life is hell, man—(The more he talks the farther away he gets) And I’ll pull the car up on the driveway … just a plain black Chrysler, I think, with white walls—no—black tires. More elegant. Rich people don’t have to be flashy … though I’ll have to get something a little sportier for Ruth—maybe a Cadillac convertible to do her shopping in. … And I’ll come up the steps to the house and the gardener will be clipping away at the hedges and he’ll say, “Good evening, Mr. Younger.” And I’ll say, “Hello, Jefferson, how are you this evening?” And I’ll go inside and Ruth will come downstairs and meet me at the door and we’ll kiss each other and she’ll take my arm and we’ll go up to your room to see you sitting on the floor with the catalogues of all the great schools in America around you. … All the great schools in the world! And—and I’ll say, all right son—it’s your seventeenth birthday, what is it you’ve decided? … Just tell me where you want to go to school and you’ll go. Just tell me, what it is you want to be—and you’ll be it. … Whatever you want to be—Yessir! (He holds his arms open for TRAVIS) YOU just name it, son … (TRAVIS leaps into them) and I hand you the world!