13 Little Blue Envelopes

Rule #1: You may bring only what fits in your backpack. Don’t try to fake it with a purse or a carry-on. Rule #2: You may not bring guidebooks, phrase books, or any kind of foreign language aid. And no journals. Rule #3: You cannot bring extra money or credit/debit cards, travelers’ checks, etc. I’ll take care of all that. Rule #4: No electronic crutches. This means no laptop, no cell phone, no music, and no camera. You can’t call home or communicate with people in the U.S. by Internet or telephone. Postcards and letters are acceptable and encouraged. That’s all you need to know for now.

I'm Keith," he said, "and you're . . . clearly mad, but what's your name?

She was standing in the airport of Copenhagen, staring at a doorway, trying to figure out if it was (a) a bathroom and (b) what kind of bathroom it was. The door merely said H. Was she an H? Was H "hers"? It could just as easily be "his". Or "Helicopter Room: Not a Bathroom at All

I am a mass of contradictions.

I like you because you were mad. And you're pretty. And pretty sane for a mad person.

Go see old virgins! Now ask a strange boy out, you shy, Retarded thing!

When she emerged, Keith was watching the tiny round window of the under-the-counter washing machine. "Put your clothes in for a wash," he said. "They were disgusting." Ginny always thought that the only way of getting clothes clean was by drowning them in scalding water and then whipping them around in a violent centrifugal motion that caused the entire washing machine to vibrate and the floor to shake. You beat them clean. You made them suffer. This machine used about half a cup of water and was about as violent as a toaster, plus it stopped every few minutes, as if it were exhausted from the effort of turning itself. Sluff, sluff, sluff sluff. Rest. Rest. Rest. Click. Sluff, sluff, sluff, sluff. Rest. Rest. Rest. "Who thought to put a window on a washing machine?" Keith asked. "Does anyone just sit and watch their wash?" You mean, besides us?" "Well," he said, "yeah. Is there any coffee?

What the hell is wrong with you?" he asked. It was a good question.

Nothing was quite like it was supposed to be.

Sometimes artist like to catch themselves looking out, let the world see them for once. It's a signature. This one is a very bold one. But this is also a witnessing. We want to remember, and we want to be remembered. That's why we paint.

Why Paris? Paris needs no reason. Paris is its own reason.

i miss you so much it's giving me a pain in my pancreas.

i get a little romantic about the old Empire State. Just looking at it makes me want to play some Frank Sinatra tunes and sway a little. I have a crush on a building. I'd been in there several times but never to work. I always knew there were offices in there but the face never penetrated, really. You don't work in the Empire State Building. You propose in the Empire State Building. You sneak a flask up there and raise a toast to the whole city of New York.

Sometimes, life leaves you without directions, without guideposts or signs. When this happens, you just have to pick a direction and run like hell.

She had always thought applying to college would be exciting. Living away from home, meeting so many new people, Learning new things, making a few poor life desicisons....

Her kung fu is that powerful.

The locker at the end of her bed had no lock, and one of the hinges was busted. She opened it up. There was a thing in it. The thing might have been a sandwich at some point, or an animal, or a human hand...but what it was now was fuzzy and putrid. A minute later, Ginny was down the stairs, out the door, and gone.

She didn't even notice right away that a small animal had come out from behind a nearby car and was slowly making its way toward the trash can she was standing near. She flipped through some old files in her mind, trying to come up with what this thing might be, and after a few seconds decided that--impossible as it seemed--it was a fox.

I still have a whopping bad case of what you call scag magnetism. I thought i had gotten rid of it there, but it looks like scary guys still materialize from thin air in my presence. They are drawn to me. I am the North Pole, and they are the explorers of love.

People don't change . . . You just sort of have to take them like they are.

Sometimes, Gin, life leaves you without directions, without guideposts or signs. When this happens, you just have to pick a direction and run like hell.

I'll go to Venice and drown my sorrows.

Ginny had seen enough shows in her lifetime to know that this wasn’t a very good show. It didn’t actually make any sense. There were a lot of random things going on, like a guy who sometimes rode through the scene on a bike for no reason that Ginny could figure. And at one point, there was a shooting in the background, but the guy who got shot just kept on singing, so his injuries obviously weren’t that bad.

life leaves you without directions, without guideposts or signs. When this happens, you just have to pick a direction and run like hell.

Early the next morning, they were on a tram out to the far edge of Amsterdam. Ginny liked the tram. It was like an overgrown toy train that had gotten loose on the streets. She looked out and saw the Netherlands wobbling by - its ancient houses and constant canals and people in practical shoes.

Before she could answer, the waiter sprang at his chance to brush some crumbs from David's chair. He had been hanging around their table like a vulture, waiting for them to eat the last papadum crumb so he could take away the basket. He eyed the last piece sadly, as if it were the barrier between him and eternal happiness. Ginny grabbed it and shoved it in her mouth. The man looked relieved and took the basket but immediately returned to stare mournfully at their water glasses.

I live alone," Knud said, "and I work alone, but I am never truly alone. I do my ancestor's work. I live the entire history of my country and people.