Margaret Leigh

‘It’s Giovanni,’ she said. I watched her. ‘Isn’t it,’ she asked, carefully, ‘that you think you’ve done something awful to him by leaving him in that room? I think you blame yourself for what happened to him. But, darling, nothing you could have done would have helped him. Stop torturing yourself.’ ‘He was so beautiful,’ I said. I had not meant to

This is what I make of it: I’m quite an old man now, and will die before you. In that case my eternity will begin before yours – but if eternity has a beginning, how can it be infinite? I think this is eternity, Grace Macaulay – I don’t think it begins, I think it has begun. So this is eternity, we are taking part in it right now – I send this emai

In mocking at the people you saw here, you commit more than ill manners; you commit an injustice over which you will burn with shame – and very soon. For it is these braying boys who the moment war comes will flock to fight. It is they who will confront the evil that is Hitler even though they do it for a jape and a lark.

Kings’ legitimacy was earned through a combination of sword-wielding leadership in war and noble bloodline – as the sons or grandsons of men who had been kings (or at least great lords) three or four generations in the past. In Ireland, that birthright was called rigdomna – eligibility to rule. In the absence of legitimacy, power was seized by main

Born and raised in Beanstalk, he genuinely loved his city. He found it deeply irritating whenever Beanstalk was compared to the Tower of Babel. Admittedly, Beanstalk was something of a symbol of modern capitalism, where every inch and moment on its territory was commercialized, but it was not a nest of evil to Byungsoo. He told himself, “People who

‘But my dear Mildred, you mustn’t marry,’ he was saying indignantly. ‘Life is disturbing enough as it is without these alarming suggestions. I always think of you as being so very balanced and sensible, such an excellent woman. I do hope you’re not thinking of getting married?’

When I was little and my mom was working at the corral, I spent all day as a horse. I ate molasses covered oats from the grain bin. I drank from the water troughs. When I ran I was galloping. I’d look along the edge of the forest for two sticks just the right length and hold them in my hands for front legs. The sticks helped me see myself, feel mys

The thrown pyjamas get halfway to the spider then crumple in mid-air. They become floor and, in the same way that a black cat's yawn can cause a sudden new colour and potential violence to a scene, your crumpled silk pyjamas change the room entirely. They sprawl a glowing chalk outline on the carpet.

Dozens and dozens of people, they just keep coming, and every single one of their heads is crammed with stories they believe and stories they want to believe and stories someone else has made them believe, and every story is battering against the thin walls of the person’s skull, drilling and gnawing for its chance to escape and attack someone else