Kenny paced along the driveway, kicking stones, saying to himself, “Finish your milk, finish your homework, finish your prayers.” Huffing, exhausted, he slowly chanted, “Dol­phins, dragons, pelicans, trampolines

He pulled over and walked back and waited for a pause in the traffic and got the phone. It was ringing. “Margaret tells me you won’t be coming home this weekend,” his wife said.

Edgar had been a theology student, and a bicycle messenger, and a junk-bonds trader, and now he was working on his master’s degree. His new ambition was to become a kindergarten teacher. He felt he needed to have a master’s degree in order to teach in a kindergarten.

The last ones to work for dollars aroused hatred in the town, and some were subjected to regrettable acts of retribution.  In our defense, it was an unusual time. 

Jermyn Street, gaslit and foggy on this rainy evening in 1901, pleased Mr. Santayana in its resemblance to a John Atkinson Grimshaw, correct and gratifyingly English

Sometime between the cheese and the fruit, while the port was still being passed, Lieutenant Wilby allowed a sweet, but rather too boisterous fart to slip between his buttocks. 

Towards the end the Gls at Nuremberg played basketball almost around the clock, it seemed. We couldn't see them from our cells, but the percussive bap, bap, bap of the ball on the floor carried to us from the old mess hall where they played. 

The train arrived at about six o’clock on a cold, wet November morning. The fog was so thick it was almost impossible to see. I was wearing my coat collar up and my hat shoved down around my ears, but still the fog penetrated all the way to my bones. The apartment where Leonidas lived was in a neighborhood far from the center of town

Last spring and summer, I was reading the stories of the Swiss writer Peter Bichsel. I began reading them in Vienna. The little book—a hardcover, but small and lightweight—was a gift

I’m on the train, traveling alone, with two seats to myself. I have to use the restroom. Without thinking about it carefully, I ask a couple across the aisle if they would please watch my things for me for a moment. Then I take a closer look at them and have second thoughts: they are young, for one thing. Also, they seem very nervous, the guy’s eyes are bloodshot, and the girl has a lot of tattoos. Still, it’s done now. I get up and start moving back. But, as a precaution, I ask a man sitting a few seats back from mine, who is dressed in a suit and looks like a businessman, to please keep an eye on that young couple for me, because I have had to leave my seat for a moment and all my things are on it. I could just go back and retrieve my bag, giving an excuse. In fact, this is suggested by the man, who objects to being put in this position, the position of having to stop what he is doing and watch a young couple who have done nothing wrong, so far, anyway. But I feel it is too awkward to go and get my bag, and even if I went and got my bag, I would still be leaving on my seat a valuable coat.