After listening to a lot of these stories, I began to think that American loneliness is a completely different creature from anything we experience in this country, and it made me glad I was born Japanese. The type of loneliness where you need to kee...
What does ‘stuck’ mean?” “It means I should make some big decision, I should do some enormous thing. And I can’t do anything. I can’t stand my life, and I can’t change it.” “Maybe it’s not an enormous thing,” he says. “Maybe y...
I loved her like silence looks black when you try to touch it. I don’t remember her name or what she looked like or what her voice sounded like or anything she’s ever said or written, and that’s why I think I love her.
My parents didn't grow up here or anything. They chose to live in this nowhere town. Why? Because it was named after Hannibal of Carthage. Their basic train of thought was this: Hannibal's Rest? And we're naming our child after Alexander the Great? M...
The advantages of natural folly in a beautiful girl have been already set forth by the capital pen of a sister author; and to her treatment of the subject I will only add, in justice to men, that though to the larger and more trifling part of the sex...
She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance - a misplaced shame. Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well−informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible pe...
I am fond of history and am very well contented to take the false with the true. In the principal facts they have sources of intelligence in former histories and records, which may be as much depended on, I conclude, as anything that does not actuall...
But Jesus makes his appearance here only as a corpse; the living man, the wine-guzzling vagrant and precocious socialist, is never once mentioned, nor anything he ever had to say. Christ crucified rules, and it may be that the true business of modern...
It's not like they can take anything from me,' he says later, back with his homeboys in Juvenile Hall. 'Ain't got nothing to give. Nothin' but time, that is. And I been doin' time my whole life, one way or the other.
He rolled his eyes. "I will never not be worried about you! That's close to impossible." He ran a hand over his face in frustration. "I wish for one moment you could feel what its like to be a Protector. I can't think of anything else, Raina, not eve...
I muse again on the dogmatic assertion which I often make that the countryman's relation to Nature must never be anything else but an alliance... When we begin to consider Nature as something to be robbed greedily like an unguarded treasure, or used ...
Or is it the case that no one gets over anything? Is there really that much pain and suffering continuing right now at this minute, in millions of hearts, in bodies carrying on the burden of existence, trying to smile through tears for fleeting, pass...
I can concede that the government has no knowledge of the people, but I believe the people know less of the government. There are useless officials, evil, if you like, but there are also good ones, and these are not able to accomplish anything becaus...
When you give everything and expect nothing in return, only then will you be in a position to gain anything. When you love loving, you give because giving is getting. Giving is a gift unto itself, and when you realize this you understand that you can...
Compare yourself to no one else but yourself. It’s not about anybody else’s anything. It’s about YOU. Are you the best you? That’s all you need to worry about. Imagine how awesome it would be if everyone just worried about making themselves t...
Everybody should have their own personal logo. Mine is a smiley face that’s winking, as if I’m passing on secret knowledge. But it’s not like I tell just anybody. My secrets are so sought after that the NSA is always whispering at me to try to ...
Know me, Amber. I am Amelia Hoffman, and that," I said emphatically, gesturing towards them, "is my family. And if you or anyone does anything to harm them, I will turn the wrath of the Earth Mother on you. I will turn this entire town into a desert ...
Oh, gentlemen, perhaps I really regard myself as an intelligent man only because throughout my entire life I've never been able to start or finish anything. Granted, granted I'm a babbler, a harmless, irksome babbler, as we all are. But what's to be ...
This is one more piece of advice I have for you: don't get impatient. Even if things are so tangled up you can't do anything, don't get desperate or blow a fuse and start yanking on one particular thread before it's ready to come undone. You have to ...
He conveyed a strange impression of being in safety, and completely secure. He had a courteous little manner with him, and smiled and nodded, as I pointed out the hills and the tall trees to him, as if he were interested in everything, and incapable ...
It's poor judgment', said Grandpa 'to call anything by a name. We don't know what a hobgoblin or a vampire or a troll is. Could be lots of things. You can't heave them into categories with labels and say they'll act one way or another. That'd be sill...
