Destiny is no more than the fulfillment of purposive potentialities within us. The human cerebral cortex is a single sheet composed of more neurons than there are stars in the known universe folded like a paper crane to fit in a quart-sized cubbyhole...
Handel's yearning for independence from the traditional chains of patronage and his persistence in monitoring his productions resulted with unique developments concerning Baroque 'opera seria'; however, paradoxically his personal obsession to obtain ...
People felt themselves watching him even before they knew that there was anything different about him. His eyes made a person think that he heard things that no one else had ever heard, that he knew things no one had ever guessed before. He did not s...
It'll be no use their putting their heads down and saying, 'Come up again, dear!' I shall only look up and say, 'Who am I, then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I'll come up -- if not, I'll stay down here till I'm somebody ...
David Foster Wallace: Because I'd like to be the sort of person who can enjoy things at the time instead of having to go back in my head and enjoy them then.
Love allows understanding to dawn, and understanding is precious. Where you are understood, you are at home. Understanding nourishes belonging. When you really feel understood, you feel free to release yourself into the trust and shelter of the other...
Hate isn’t the opposite of love, apathy is. Hating doesn’t free you from feeling anything. You have to carry it around, using every scar, every little memory like a building block. Like a stone in a wall, until you’ve created a new person, a ne...
What is the nature of the border between truth and lies? It is permeable and blurred because it is planted thick with rumour, confabulation, misunderstandings and twisted tales. Truth can break the gates down, truth can howl in the street; unless tru...
There are so many unsung heroines and heroes at this broken moment in our collective story, so many courageous persons who, unbeknownst to themselves, are holding together the world by their resolute love or contagious joy. Although I do not know you...
To be silent. In hopes of not offending, in hopes of being accepted. But what happened to people who never spoke, never raised their voices? Kept everything inside? Gamache knew what happened. Everything they swallowed, every word, thought, feeling r...
Century after century, the belief that an individual’s physical health was independent of his or her emotional health has so dominated medical thought that there has even been open contempt for anyone who would dare to claim that a person’s physi...
Jesus tells Peter to forgive seventy times seven times, not because the person we forgive will it that many times, but because resentment can have such a grip on our hearts that we need to forgive that often for our own healing.
A brick could be used to control whole populations of people. Just get a good looking person, like a news anchor, to give it out to the masses and say soothing things with a straight face and all will be OK and the system will continue on as centrall...
I would resurrect that person in words, and once the pages had been printed and the story had been bound between covers, they would have something to hold on to for the rest of their lives. Not only that, but something that would outlive them, that w...
The aftermath of bearing shackles is an exquisite devastation, fraught with the ravages of survival. Even though one is no longer held captive—be that from a person, a government, or one’s inner self—the scars are deeply engraved into one’s p...
... In our family, if you said the words 'I feel,' they better be followed with 'hungry' or 'cold'. Because we didn't get personal, that's just how it was.
What do you do when the one person you want comfort from the most is the one who caused your pain? How can I want so desperately for him to wrap me up in his arms but also want so much for him to leave me alone.
I told him I believed in hell, and that certain people, like me, had to live in hell before they died, to make up for missing out on it after death, since they didn't believe in life after death, and what each person believed happened to him when he ...
You look beautiful," Alodia says. I startle at the compliment. Then I smile. "I’m beautiful to the one person who matters." She nods. "Hector’s mouth is going to drop open when he sees you.” “I hope so. But I meant me. I’m beautiful to me.
When someone is force to realize that the road he'd been working hard to make progress on was no different from the place he'd started, and when he realized that he had in fact gone backward, all that person can do is face the pale sky and lament.
You can't quantify love, and if you try, you can end up focusing on misleading factors. Stuff that really has more to do with personality-the fact that some people are simply more expressive or emotional or needy in a relationship. But beyond such sm...
