Now I see why you have no trouble getting laid," she said softly. Tru swallowed. "You didn't before?" "No. You're kind of an asshole." "No more than anyone else," he said with a shrug. "Less than some." She frowned up at him. "But you should be bette...
The positivists have a simple solution: the world must be divided into that which we can say clearly and the rest, which we had better pass over in silence. But can anyone conceive of a more pointless philosophy, seeing that what we can say clearly a...
Pragmatism asks its usual question. "Grant an idea or belief to be true," it says, "what concrete difference will its being true make in anyone's actual life? How will the truth be realized? What experiences will be different from those which would o...
The tag that I was too small and too slow just made me work that much harder. Besides, quickness is more important than flat-out speed. How often does a receiver run 40 yards straight down the field? Not very often. Lateral speed is what counts. How ...
How could tickling, even though it causes laughter, be at the same time such a vicious form of torture? Sitting on the edge of my bed, I thought it through. I came to the conclusion, at last, that it was like this: Tickling and learning were much the...
With gas cookers and chip pans in every kitchen, the chip-pan fire was by far the most popular method these Proddies had for burning their houses down. The second technique was the ever popular chimney fire and number three had to be the drunken ciga...
The good doctor reassured John these were people who put their psychopathy to good use. They lived productive, well-adjusted lives as surgeons, CEOs and ambulance drivers. The light bulb went on. The CSC [Correctional Service of Canada] doesn't have ...
Craft can be practiced by anyone, regardless of the skill or artistry that has come to be demanded by those who preach craft. Like a good meal, a good Crafternoon shouldn't need much - a few quality ingredients, a couple of good friends, and a little...
The ocean swells around us. Sometimes, we are in a bowl of water and sometimes on the top of the lip. The horizon curves. We are sitting on top of the world. In theory, anyone is on the top of their world at every moment, given that the Earth is trul...
I am so sorry for you, Leslie.' She said it like she really meant it. But not like she was completely surprised. 'And for him. Because he's lost you now.' This last part undid me. Despite her cruel criticism of me over the years, from where she sat, ...
When Sherri asks questions about who would find me if I killed myself and what their reaction would be, I think that whoever knew me would be sad. But then everybody would get over it. I would fade away. I don't think I'm that important to anyone. No...
Politically, he was a humanitarian who did know right from left and was trapped uncomfortably between the two. He was constantly defending his Communist friends to his right-wing enemies and his right-wing friends to his Communist enemies, and he was...
With all the confusion in the world these days, no matter how often I point the way, what good does it do? And if I know it does no good and still make myself do it, this too is a kind of confusion. So it is best to leave things alone and not force t...
I have always disliked the morning, it is too responsible a time, with the daylight demanding that it be 'faced' and (usually when I wake for I wake late) with the sun already up and in charge of the world, with little hope of anyone usurping or chal...
Although I'm only fourteen, I know quite well what I want, I know who is right and who is wrong. I have my opinions, my own ideas and principles, and although it may sound pretty mad from an adolescent, I feel more of a person than a child, I feel qu...
Why has not anyone seen that fossils alone gave birth to a theory about the formation of the earth, that without them, no one would have ever dreamed that there were successive epochs in the formation of the globe.
I knew this id who very bravely and bossily came out of the closet when she was only fourteen years old. She told me then that we can't choose who we love. We just love the people we love, no matter what anyone else might want for you.
No, on the outside view there was nothing for anyone to notice about me. I remained one pillar of a trinity, another pillar was lying only temporarily (temporarily! temporarily! temporarily!) in the hospital, I was the pilot of a three-engine aircraf...
, I heard my aunt Diane boom in my head. Those words had been the bane of my childhood, a constant reminder that nothing turned out right, not just for me but for anyone, and that's why someone had invented a saying like that. So we'd all know that w...
I look at you, and I see the most beautiful woman on the face of the earth. Inside and out you are beautiful. I know you better than anyone else could ever know you, because I can see into your thoughts and read your memories. The very light in you, ...
The thing that drew them to her was the thing that had made all of them come to Sexton in the first place: they were all outsiders, people on the fringe. And no one, it seemed, understood this better than Suz. She turned her difference into a source ...
