Maybe there’s a heaven, like they say, a place where everything we’ve ever done is noted and recorded, weighed on big karma scales. Maybe not. Maybe this whole thing is just a giant experiment run by aliens who find out human hijinks amusing. Or ...
When we decided to have Julie, I couldn’t carry her. We sat down and the hard numbers stared back at us. I made twice as much as Fern. We wouldn’t have been able to feed ourselves, let alone another mouth, if I’d been the one to hold her. And s...
You try hard, but you don't succeed.. So you try harder, and harder... But you still just don't succeed, you give it a try once more; only realising its never going to work out the way you want it to. But then again, you remember; you've tried so muc...
When you find a guy who calls you beautiful instead of hot, who calls you back when you hang up on him, who will stand in front of you when other’s cast stones, or will stay awake just to watch you sleep, who wants to show you off to the world when...
There are a hundred things she has tried to chase away the things she won't remember and that she can't even let herself think about because that's when the birds scream and the worms crawl and somewhere in her mind it's always raining a slow and end...
I’m not your boyfriend!” I snapped, trying to gently move her hands away from my body. “How can you say that?” Sara asked in horror. “It’s shockingly effortless,” I replied. “My vocal chords vibrate, and my mouth and tongue articulate...
You love because you want to need someone the way you did when you were a child, and have them need you too. You eat well because the intensity of taste reminds you of a need satisfied, a pain relieved. The finest paintings are nothing more than the ...
Two mystic states can be dissociated: the ecstatic-beneficent-and-benevolent, contemplation of the divine love, the divine splendour with goodwill toward others. And the bestial, namely the fanatical, the man on fire with God and anxious to stick his...
If, in all that you wish to do, you begin by asking yourself: am I certain that I would wish to do this an infinite number of times? This should be for you the most solid centre of gravity . . . My doctrine says, the task is to live your life in such...
What does it mean to be the master of your own soul, the captain of your own mind? It means that you keep the final say on what you think, feel and do. No one fearful thought can overtake you, no one doubtful feeling can overthrow you from your path,...
What struck me, in reading the reports from Sri Lanka, was the mild disgrace of belonging to our imperfectly evolved species in the first place. People who had just seen their neighbors swept away would tell the reporters that they knew a judgment ha...
Dead Butterfly By Ellen Bass For months my daughter carried a dead monarch in a quart mason jar. To and from school in her backpack, to her only friend’s house. At the dinner table it sat like a guest alongside the pot roast. She took it to bed, pr...
If you could possibly understand how precious and powerful your experience of this one lifetime as yourself is, you wouldn't be trying to go anywhere else. If you could know the perfection of time and space, You would slow each moment down To drain e...
Stahl trailed him upstairs, across a mezzanine, and out into the darkness of the sloping balcony. Tom gave the aisle his torch so his guest could see. On the screen below a woman's head was wavering, two or three times larger than life. A metallic vo...
It’s destiny; the stars have aligned perfectly to bring us together as friends. You cannot argue with what’s meant to be, once the stars have spoken, it is absolute,” he uttered, all smug and knowing. Shocked that he used the word destiny, I co...
Marambra: [weeping] If I close my eyes then the thoughts start. They make me scared. I called you. I called you many times. I can't give the children what they need. I'm so sorry I was cruel to Mateo. I'm doing what I can to survive. I really want to...
Benjamin Button: [Voice over; letter to his daughter] For what it's worth: it's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules ...
Edmond: If you ever presume to interfere in my affairs again, I will, I promise you, finish the job I started the day we met! Do you understand? Jacopo: I understand you are mad. Edmond: Mad? My enemies are falling into my traps perfectly! Jacopo: Ma...
Dante Hicks: What are you writing over there, your memoirs? Randal Graves: I'm battling this jackass on his blog's message boards. Dante Hicks: About what? Randal Graves: About how he's got too much free time and no life. A guy in a wheelchair who's ...
Ralphie as Adult: [narrating] Some men are Baptists, others Catholics; my father was an Oldsmobile man. Mr. Parker: That son of a bitch would freeze up in the middle of summer on the equator! Mother: Little pitchers! Mr. Parker: Thanks... hold it! [t...
Christopher Johnson's Son: How many moons does our planet have? Christopher Johnson: Seven. Christopher Johnson's Son: This planet only has one. I can't wait to see our planet again... it's bigger than this one, isn't it? Christopher Johnson: [turns ...
