Vladimir Nabokov
And meanwhile, outside the door, waits my faithful, my lonely night… — Vladimir Nabokov, from “A Letter that Never Reached Russia,” The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov (Alfred A. Knopf, 1995) Advertisements
Category: Short Stories
Ernest Hemingway
Let’s not talk about how I am. It’s a subject I know too much about to want to think about anymore. — Ernest Hemingway, from “A Way You’ll Never Be,” Winner Take Nothing. (Scribner; 1 edition, January 1, 1966)
James Baldwin
I couldn’t believe it: but what I mean by that is that I couldn’t find any room for it anywhere inside me. I had kept it outside me for a long time. I hadn’t wanted to know. — James Baldwin, from “Sonny’s Blues” (1957), Going to Meet the Man. (Vintage; Reissue edition, April 25, 1995)… Continue reading James Baldwin
Ernest Hemingway
I want nothing. I just want the emptiness to mean something. — Ernest Hemingway, The Complete Short Stories (Scribner, 1987)
Edgar Allan Poe
There seemed a deep sense of life and joy about all; and although no airs blew from out the Heavens, yet everything had motion through the gentle sweepings to and fro of innumberable butterflies, that might have been mistaken for tullips with wings. ― Edgar Allan Poe, from “The Island of the Fay,” The Fall… Continue reading Edgar Allan Poe
Simon van Booy
We touched with a softness that pushed through the skin into memory, like arms plunged into a river — we could feel the weight of each other’s stones. — Simon van Booy, from “Conception,” The Secret Lives of People in Love: Stories. (Turtle Point Press; First Edition edition, May 1, 2007)
Vladimir Nabokov
–and it seemed to him that happiness itself had that smell, the smell of dead leaves. — , from “The Return of Chorb,” The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov (Alfred A. Knopf, 1995)
