This was 1990 the year that communism died in Europe and it seemed strange to me that in all the words that were written about the fall of the iron curtain, nobody anywhere lamented that it was the end of a noble experiment. I know that communism nev...
I had been running as fast as I could for all of my adult life. A person can’t listen effectively while running. A running mother is not able to pick up clues. She is not able to let go of her own agenda long enough to stop and listen.
This is the point where the knowing, irony-infused author laughs along with his readers about his time among the aphorisms, how he was once so gullible and needy that he drank deeply of such weak and fruity Kool-Aid. That's some other book. Slogans s...
Where had he been? Drinking, obviously. Then she started cataloging all the ways he was worthless. On fool impulse, as his most potent available argument against Lily, Bud stuck his hands into his coat pockets and pulled out the many bundles of hundr...
Thieves are not so bad, and killing wears all possible costumes. There is no death, no murder that is better than any other. If you can kill me, the manner hardly bears consideration. You want to kill your own father, and you think it will make your ...
We do not belong to this material world that science constructs for us. We are not in it; we are outside. We are only spectators. The reason why we believe that we are in it, that we belong to the picture, is that our bodies are in the picture. Our b...
We have two minds. One thinks, the other knows. The mind that knows goes back many lifetimes. This is the mind of the one heart, of all things: the trees, the plants, the clouds, the rivers, the mountains. The more time you spend with this mind, the ...
Well, it seems to me that there are books that tell stories, and then there are books that tell truths... The first kind, they show you life like you want it to be. With villains getting what they deserve and the hero seeing what a fool he's been and...
[W]hat we also see in sex is a kind of submissiveness. But not a kind of submissiveness which is simply 'do what you like, I'm just here for you', but it...is, or can be, very manipulative. It is a way of getting the other person to exercise all his ...
He made a sound of disgust in the back of his throat. "Oh thank you so much. That's what every man wants to hear about his name. You might as well call me 'Little Pecker' while you're at it and tell me you would love to have me go shopping with you f...
I don't know what you think of me. And you certainly would never picture us together. But probably peanut butter was just peanut butter for a long time, before someone ever thought of pairing it with jelly. And there was salt, but it started to taste...
When you've had one call after another and your little one is tugging on your shirt, remember what really matters. When the milk is splattered all over the floor and those little eyes are looking at you for your reaction, remember what really matters...
In many cases you are not buying a product but an “identity enhancer.” Designer labels are primarily collective identities that you buy into. They are expensive and therefore “exclusive.” If everybody could buy them, they would lose their psy...
We are the ones who take this thing called music and line it up with this thing called time. We are the ticking, we are the pulsing, we are underneath every part of this moment. And by making the moment our own, we are rendering it timeless. There is...
Normal” is all about perception. I mean, isn’t “normal” what the majority of people do? So what if suddenly ninety-nine people out of a hundred decide to walk their iguanas down the street while wearing a tutu? Wouldn’t the one guy who didn...
It was the impatience of the way he tore my panties from my body, that really turned me on: I was all he could think of, as his lust got the better of him. I glanced back, and saw the underwear torn and discarded, a little strip of thin black materia...
If Mr. Thornton was a fool in the morning, as he assured himself at least twenty times he was, he did not grow much wiser in that afternoon. All that he gained in return for his sixpenny omnibus ride, was a more vivid conviction that there never was,...
Jesus lived in occupied territory, in poverty and misery, and his stories and preaching are all about food, land, liberation from bondage and servitude and get. He preached about providing for those who lacked the most and were considered expendable,...
He could remember all about it now; the pitiful figure he must have cut; the absurd way in which he had gone and done the very thing he had so often agreed with himself in thinking would be the most foolish thing in the world; and had met with exactl...
All things are moral; and in their boundless changes have an unceasing reference to spiritual nature. Therefore is nature glorious with form, color, and motion, that every globe in the remotest heaven; every chemical change from the rudest crystal up...
You should do that more often,” he said. “Laugh, I mean.” “I know.” But that sounded sad, and she didn’t want to be sad, so she added, “I don’t often get to torture grown men, though.” “Really?” he murmured. “I would think you...