May we do it again? She sounds remarkably bright and cheerful. 'And I didn't bleed. My mother said I would experience great agony.' 'Half an hour.' 'I beg your pardon? Your mumbling.' Eyes closed, I attempt to enunciate a little more clearly. 'In hal...
To want something desperately, to be tested, to feel that life will be impossible if the object of one's desires is not achieved, is always dangerous for the soul. Some people attempt to climb Everest because, as they say, it is there; others want no...
Language is a piss poor attempt at telepathy is what it is. We try to put our thoughts into each other's heads through language...But half the intended meaning gets lost in the transmission, and the other half is filtered through existing assumptions...
If Christ be a fraud, he was among the most peculiar yet brilliant of frauds in saying that only he was the way, the truth, and the life. This is the importance of grace - some people think that simply being nice and not harming others is morality; o...
When you are rich and powerful, no one will challenge you to your face or give you a chance to explain yourself. All the whispers are behind your back. You are left with no means of clearing your own name. And after a while you realize there is no po...
In World War II, some Japanese soldiers preferred to take their own lives rather become prisoners of war. In Saipan hundreds of civilians jumped to their deaths over cliffs in order to avoid falling into American hands. Even in life-or-death situatio...
Like the chosen Shulamite, there will be times when you too will be faced with crude assaults on your virtue, or with solicitations that will be naked attempts to cheapen your marriage. Being polite is one thing, but there comes a time. Even the peac...
It (trying to keep the law) grants you the power to judge others and feel superior to them. You believe you are living to a higher standard than those you judge. Enforcing rules, especially in its more subtle expressions like responsibility and expec...
The point is not that angering people should be the goal for every brand. It's that attempting to avoid controversy at all costs is sometimes the riskier option. It can deprive a brand of its distinctiveness and edge. Too often, marketers strive to p...
To attempt to describe how music pervades and flavors a life feels a little like an invasion of privacy, even if the privacy is my own. Listening to music,...is finally the most inward of acts--so inward that even language, even the language of thoug...
People today will have you believing life is a blank slate upon which you can write anything at all--this is poetic, even romantic. Unfortunately, it's also a lie, because life exists in, is bound by, shaped by, controlled by, and functions within a ...
It is my sincere opinion that our precious time on earth should not be spent attempting to justify unbelievable acts of cruelty, death, and disease as a part of 'God’s Plan' or the greater good — and clinging to ancient texts that preach ill-conc...
Cabinet is a conscious, explicit attempt to portray the Doctor himself as myth. “He’s a mischief, a leprechaun, a boojum,” says one character, bookseller and collector of incunabula, Syme. “The Doctor is a myth. He’s straight out of Old Eng...
In a world dominated by violent and passive-aggressive men, and by male institutions dispensing violence, it is extraordinary to note how often women are represented as the perpetrators of violence, most of all when we are simply fighting in self-def...
I told her about the time that I got so tired of you stealing the sheets that in my sleep-weary logic I decided that the thing to do was to tie them around my legs, knot and all, and how, when you attempted to steal them that night, you ended up yank...
She's just being sensitive. You put a girl in jail and forget about her for a few months, and they all take it so bloody personally." "You forgot about her?" "She's lucky I did. She'd been sent to kill Rhiannon." "Then why isn't she dead?" Celyn sigh...
Nature is typified by strength; humanity by weakness. Nature adheres to an immutable order; humanity to an ever-increasing chaos. Nature recognizes no equality at any level of it's order; humanity preaches an all-prevasive equality and freely hands-o...
For there is not a single human being, not even the primitive Negro, not even the idiot, who is so conveniently simple that his being can be explained as the sum of two or three principal elements; and to explain so complex a man as Harry by the artl...
Independence is counterfeit freedom. We think if we can make all our own choices and do our own thing, we will be free. But the opposite is true. By trying to be independent, we are attempting to take God’s place as the ruler of our lives. We can n...
The Rakshasa," said Percy pedantically, "are a different breed altogether from our vampires. Much in the same way that poodles and dachshunds are different breeds of dog. Rakshasas are reviled in India. Their position as tax collectors is an attempts...
So this is supposed to be about the how, and when, and why, and what of reading -- about the way that, when reading is going well, one book leads to another and to another, a paper trail of theme and meaning; and how, when it's going badly, when book...
