Fiction
A hundred years of great writing, curated for The New Yorker’s centenary.
The Embassy of Cambodia
“Nobody could have expected it, or be expecting it. It’s a surprise, to us all.”
Year’s End
“I didn’t know which was worse—the idea of my father’s remarrying for love or of his actively seeking out a stranger for companionship.”
Jon
“If I wish to compare my love to a love I have previous knowledge of, I do not want to stand there in the wind casting about for my metaphor!”
Brokeback Mountain
“They never talked about the sex, let it happen, at first only in the tent at night, then in the full daylight.”
Lucy
“I had begun to see the past like this: there is a line; you can draw it yourself, or sometimes it gets drawn for you.”
Voices Lost in Snow
“Asking questions was ‘being tiresome,’ while persistent curiosity got one nowhere, at least nowhere of interest.”
The Balloon
“It was agreed that since the meaning of the balloon could never be known absolutely, extended discussion was pointless.”
You Were Perfectly Fine
“The pale young man eased himself carefully into the low chair, and rolled his head to the side, so that the cool chintz comforted his cheek and temple.”