One day,' was the dark reply, 'I will find the Ripper, and you will prove it with your life.' 'I hope that is not a threat against my person, sir, verily I do.' The auctioneer was all of a quiver. 'I shall not endure that sort of talk in my wife's ve...
I want to go much further than that. I want to point out that when Jesus spoke, whether it be of blessing or wealth or prosperity or what-have-you, He was rarely speaking of what is physical, what is tangible, what is seen. I don’t think Jesus was ...
Even though Sam wasn't a romance author, he knew all the big ones, the heavy hitters and those that had crossed genres. He was greeted by most of the authors, some he knew and others who wanted to meet the famous author. Needless to say the romance g...
The earliest intelligence of the travellers' safe arrival at Antigua, after a favourable voyage, was received; though not before Mrs. Norris had been indulging in very dreadful fears, and trying to make Edmund participate them whenever she could get ...
The past is a presence between us. In all my mother does and says, the past continually discloses itself in the smallest ways. She sees it directly; I see its shadow. Still, it pulses in my fingertips, feeds on my consciousness. It is a backdrop for ...
The ring which you are holding, my friend, is identical to that one. I had it cut according to the model of the king's ring, and damascened in Spain. The original is still in the Escorial; it would have been pleasant to steal it, for I easily acquire...
These guys we're meeting? They're dead. Saji has had things done to people who crossed him or whom he has perceived as crossing him. Ugly things. These guys we're meeting? They think they're tough. They run book, own strip clubs, dabble in petty thef...
Someone once said that Stephen Austin didn't like preachers at all. He swore that "one preacher could stir up more trouble than a dozen horse thieves." Matthew's Gospel reminds us that it is the role of a disciple of Jesus to stir up trouble by playi...
At every moment you choose yourself. But do you choose *your* self? Body and soul contain a thousand possibilities out of which you can build many I's. But in one of them is there a congruence of the elector and the elected. Only one--which you will ...
However, one thing that grave illness does is to make you examine familiar principles and seemingly reliable sayings. And there's one that I find I am not saying with quite the same conviction as I once used to: In particular, I have slightly stopped...
Ironic, isn’t it?” Shawn said. “It’s not ironic at all,” Gus said. “Dude, it’s so like a black fly in your chardonnay.” “How many times do I have to tell you that’s not ironic, either?” “Rain on your wedding day?” “‘Iron...
She had not told her mother about Denys, but she had a suspicion that Mrs. Shannon knew all about it nevertheless. It was unlike her not to want to satisfy her curiosity when she came upon her daughter sobbing in various parts of the house. She had a...
I feel alone. I don't mean i feel lonely; I mean i feel alone, the same way i feel the blanket resting on my body, or the feathers of my pillow under my head, or the tight string of my sleep pants twisted up around my waist. I feel alone as if it wer...
For example, the call for equal rights has perverted into “let’s all be the same.” Male and female biological differences are discounted, because “male” and “female” are considered “outdated social constructs,” and while that is par...
The most effective attitude to adopt is one of supreme acceptance. The world is full of people with different characters and temperaments. We all have a dark side, a tendency to manipulate, and aggressive desires. The most dangerous types are those w...
I see the Christian world like this: we've inherited a divided map of the truth, and each of us has a piece. Our traditions teach us that no one else has a valid map and that our own church's piece shows us all the terrain and roads that exist. In fa...
I’d missed him so much, it almost hurt. It started the moment I left the Keep and nagged at me all day. Every day I had to fight with myself to keep from making up bullshit reasons to call the Keep so I could hear his voice. My only saving grace wa...
If we recognize the power of entheogenic substances to open us to the universal truth and full dimension of human experience, and if we accept the role of the shaman as hierophant and psychopomp into this realm, as enacted for example by the Huichol ...
Men are excessively ruthless and cruel not as a rule out of malice but from outraged righteousness. How much more is this true of legally constituted states, invested with all this seeming moral authority of parliaments and congresses and courts of j...
Thus the feeling I sometimes have - which all of us who work closely with aphasiacs have - that one cannot lie to an aphasiac. He cannot grasp your words, and cannot be deceived by them; but what he grasps he grasps with infallible precision, namely ...
If this were a proper world, beautiful faces would belong to beautiful people. Good people with kind hearts and clever minds would always have bright eyes and dazzling smiles, and bad people would have scraggly hair and warty noses. That way if you s...