The boy just looked at the floor, giving the impression that he tried to convince his soul to dwell the small body and flee through the window and fly very loudly to the sky, going as far as possible.

And only at that moment, with the day almost at the end, we finally started talking. It was as if we were secret agents, but we had tired of everything and decided simply to abandon the disguise....

November 15, 2014 "BRUNO FROVNED and Consided IT....

Fences such as the one at the heart of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas still exist; it is unlikely that they will ever fully disappear. But whatever reaction you have to this story, I hope that the...

the past is the past. Here we have a fresh beginning, but let that beginning start tomorrow.

And that's the end of the story about Bruno and his family. Of course all this happened a long time ago and nothing like that could ever happen again. Not in this day and age.

it struck me as extraordinary that the leaders of each of these countries bore such an intimate familial relationship to each other. It was as if the entire matter was nothing more than a childish...

But for all that we had, for all the luxury to which we were accustomed, we were both denied love, and this deficiency would be scorched into our futures lives like an ill-considered tattoo inscribed...

Why do they hate us so much anyway?' I asked after a lengthy pause. 'If they're not queer themselves, then what does it matter to them if someone else is?' 'I remember a friend of mine once telling me...

Every girl likes a man in uniform," said Ernst. "Every girl, perhaps," remarked Beatrix. "But not every uniform." "You know why people wear uniforms, don't you, Pierrot?" continued the chauffeur. The...

However, as the consequences of Black Thursday began to settle in investors' minds, most people attempted to recover their losses and the dramatic selling began again. On Tuesday 29 October, the day...

Please don't let Julian die, I asked God. And please stop me from being a homosexual. Only when I stood up and walked away did I realize that that had been two prayers, so I went back and lit a second...

The moral of the story', he repeated, leaning forward and placing his hands flat on the desk in front of him, 'is that every so often a natural disaster comes along, an act of God, and it blows all...

Anything is possible,' I said. 'But most things are unlikely.

peaceful in the knowledge that a long and happy relationship negates the need for constant chatter. Zoya and I had long perfected the art of sitting silently in each other's company for hours on end,...

Whenever I look at Edna O'Brien," continued Mr. Denby-Denby, "I get the impression that she wants to put every man she meets across her knee and give them a good spanking until they show her the...

I stood up and offered not a prayer, for that was of no use to anyone, but a moment of contemplation.

that life had manifested the heart's invisible furies on his face.

His position, like so many of his ilk, was one of uncontested and unearned respect.

uncomfortable as I felt around him, and as much as he repulsed me, it was impossible not to be simultaneously fascinated by him, for his was a consistently intoxicating presence. Whenever I saw him, I...

line came into my mind, something that Hannah Arendt had once said about the poet Auden: that life had manifested the heart's invisible furies on his face.

You know, Emily Dickinson is here too. All she does is write poems about life all the time. The irony! She keeps asking me to read them. I refuse, of course. The days are long enough as it is.

Life is suffering. Until the great day of judgement, when peace and equanimity may be restored for those who are pure of heart and deed.

In school, the other girls formed alliances which always excluded me. They called me names; I will not repeat them here. They made fun of my unshapely body, my pale skin, my untamed hair. I do not...

There are things that are simply there, without disturbing anyone, waiting for them to discover them.

I married up several times. And then across once or twice. And then beneath me. I never quite found the right level somehow. Perhaps I should have married diagonally or in a slightly curved direction.

One day he was perfectly content, playing at home, having three best friends for life, sliding down banisters, trying to stand on his tiptoes to see right across Berlin, and now he was stuck here in...

I felt that this must be what it would be like to be married to someone, a constant back and forth of bickering, watching out for any stray comment in a conversation that might be corrected, anything...

before we learn to feel afraid of things, our bodies know how to do them anyway. It's one of the more disappointing aspects of growing older. We fear more so we can do less.

But they'd never once invited any of the striped pyjama people to dinner.