I wish you did return my regard," he said. "More than I have ever wished anything in my life! Perhaps you may yet learn to do so: I should warn you that I don't easily despair!
Dancers churned around them like storm tossed flowers, their heads held to either side as they whirled with abandonment. “Look at them,” he whispered, his voice in her ear. “Have you ever seen anything like it? They have everything, don’t the...
All his words and actions would now be fit for his daughter’s ears and eyes. Life would be lived as if under [her] constant scrutiny. He would never do anything that might cause her pain or anxiety or embarrassment and there would be nothing, absol...
Sometimes, when it’s going badly, she wonders if what she believes to be a love of the written word is really just a fetish for stationery. The true writer, the born writer, will scribble words on scraps of litter, the back of a bus tickets, on the...
Recently she had become intrigued by the admiring glances of other women. The admiration of her own sex existed on a higher and more intense plane than anything men could offer, like the romantic rivalries of sisters. Together, women formed a conspir...
We left. We did not say: Don't drive, You're drunk. We did not say: We aren't letting you in that car when you are upset. We did not say: We insist on going with you. We did not say: This can wait until tomorrow. Anything-everything-can wait.
The inmost significance of the exaggerated value which is set upon hard work appears to be this: man seems to mistrust everything that is effortless; he can only enjoy, with a good conscience, what he has acquired with toil and trouble; he refused to...
My sisters and I sit together on a pair of suitcases. If we've forgotten anything, it's already too late -- our rooms have all been sealed and photographed. Anyway, Tatiana would say it's bad luck to return for something you've forgotten.
A man who drinks too much on occasion is still the same man as he was sober. An alcoholic, a real alcoholic, is not the same man at all. You can't predict anything about him for sure except that he will be someone you never met before.
[bookcover:Lessons Learned|13578440] Another shot, and for some reason, I’m the only one who can’t move. Who can’t scream. Who can’t do anything but watch as the young man’s body slumps over his tray. Finally, I find my voice and scream his...
There’s no magic ruler by which we’re all judged and weighed, not in this life. If you wait for someone to tell you it’s time to grow up, you’ll wait forever. Some people, quite happily, do just that. They don’t do anything until they’re ...
We do not want to be beginners (at prayer), but let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything but beginners all of our lives. --Thomas Merton
As long as you think that the cause of your problem is “out there”—as long as you think that anyone or anything is responsible for your suffering—the situation is hopeless. It means that you are forever in the role of victim, that you’re su...
That's the problem with relationships," George was saying. "It's a contract. You agree to be some unchanging caricature of yourself. To act the same way all the time. Never to change. It's counter-evolutionary. How can anything new and good come into...
It felt like one of those perfect moments where everything comes together. But like I said, I don't believe in accidents. Even if this strange, musical moment, the final result of a long chain of unlikely events, never came to anything else, it was m...
As one who appreciated the tragic side of eating, it seemed to him that anything other than fruit for dessert implied a reprehensible frivolity, and cakes in particular ended up annihilating the flavour of quiet sadness that must be allowed to linger...
Amelia nodded her head, "That makes perfect sense." "No is doesn't," jeered Otto. "Yes, it does,” sighed Amelia. "Don't you ever remember anything important?" "Of course, I remember how many Star Trek seasons there were and when the Three Stooges w...
More than anything, he wanted to return to the house with the same look of peace that he'd seen on Pastor Harris's face, but he trudged through the sand, he couldn't help feeling like an amateur, someone searching for God's truths like a child search...
Kidnap me and take me away. Throw me across the back of your bike and show me what it feels like to have the wind in your face and the sun on your skin, day in and day out. If it's anything at all like this then it must be heaven on earth.
We all belong here equally...Just by being born onto the earth we are accepted and the earth supports us. We don't have to be especially good. We don't have to accomplish anything. We don't even have to be healthy.
Music, uniquely among the arts, is both completely abstract and profoundly emotional. It has no power to represent anything particular or external, but it has a unique power to express inner states or feelings. Music can pierce the heart directly; it...
