Biffy didn't like enigmas - they were out of fashion.
You think that what I've told you is an anecdote. But really it isn't. It's my whole life. It's the only story I have.
Every relationship has at least one really good day. What I mean is, no matter how sour things go, there's always that day. That day is always in your possession. That's the day you remember. You get old and you think: well, at least I had that day. It happened once. You think all the variables might just line up again. But they don't. Not always. I once talked to a woman who said, "Yeah, that's the day we had an angel around.
When you’re in love you don’t have to do a damn thing. You can just be. You can just stay quiet in the world. You don’t have to move an inch.
Needing something is not the same thing as being interested in the thing itself.
Short story characters, mine anyway, are usually driven by impulse, not so much by their histories and the choices that they have to make.
In February, the overcast sky isn’t gloomy so much as neutral and vague. It’s a significant factor in the common experience of depression among the locals. The snow crunches under your boots and clings to your trousers, to the cuffs, and once you’re inside, the snow clings to you psyche, and eventually you have to go to the doctor. The past soaks into you in this weather because the present is missing almost entirely.
National honor is the national property of the highest value.
'tis his honesty that brought upon him the character of a heretic.
Why not do as much as you can, and learn as much as you can about each process?
The brain may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism, a pensioner, as it were, who dwells with the body.