The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banalit...
Why can’t I just be bad?” I asked, figuring my mom would have no idea what I was talking about. “Well, that’s easy, sweetie. You can be anything you want, but when you go against who you are inside, it doesn’t feel good.
The media not only fans our fears, it comforts us in our hubris. Nearly every scare story comes with a Message: You can take control. You can do something to keep bad things from happening to your children and to keep life from throwing you curveball...
--what's really unique about maternal anxiety today is our belief that if something goes wrong with or for our children, it's a reflection on us as mothers. Because we believe we should be able to control life so perfectly that we can keep bad things...
(As Plato:) There is nothing superstitious about forcing bad consequences for the hubris of paternalistic utopianism. Humanity should never be frozen into a vision of the best. A creative society must be willing to tolerate some degree of instability...
The diabolical thing about melancholy is not that it makes you ill but that it makes you conceited and shortsighted; yes almost arrogant. You lapse into bad taste, thinking of yourself as Heine's Atlas, whose shoulders support all the world's puzzles...
We journalists love writing about eccentrics. We hate writing about impenetrable, boring people. It makes us look bad: the duller the interviewee, the duller the prose. If you want to get away with wielding true, malevolent power, be boring.
I’ve spoken to Sid,” she admits. “He says he’s never seen Charlie so bad. He won’t eat, he’s lost weight and he looks terrible. Sid says it’s the first time he’s ever been so bored by him that he’s considered smothering him.
Speaking of boxes... Do you know that thought experiment with the cat in the box with the poison? Theory requires the cat to be both alive and dead until observed. Well, I actually performed the experiment. Dozens of times. The bad news is reality do...
In Paris, you couldn’t really turn around without seeing the result of lovers’ bad decisions. An artist given to sexual excess was almost a cliché, but no one seemed to mind. As long as you were making something good or interesting or sensationa...
The post on her left was occupied by Mr. Erskine of Treadley, an old gentleman of considerable charm and culture, who had fallen, however, into bad habits of silence, having, as he explained once to Lady Agatha, said everything that he had to say bef...
Blanket could be used to form a new word—tenkalb—which in turn could be used, or not used at all. But that’s not so bad, because many words aren’t used at all. Like the word drimorious, for example, which means “An honest politician.” Act...
What could I offer the local bad boy except my livelihood? Oh, I know. My body or my planes! Why didn't I think of that? Would you have preferred that I offer him my body, Nic, because I sure as hell wasn't going to sign over either of my planes!
There is nothing in this life that can destroy you but yourself. Bad things happen to everyone, but when they do, you can't just fall apart and die. You have to fight back. If you don't, you're the one who loses in the end. But if you do keep going a...
The fact that is the word we use for almost everything—on terrorism, drugs, even poverty—has certainly helped to desensitize us to its invocation; if we wage wars on everything, how bad can they be?
A movie playing on the TV screen in front of us. Some sort of bad Tom Cruise drama. I've never liked Tom Cruise. He always reminded me of someone's creepy cousin, who smiles too big before he touches your butt and whispers something gross in your ear...
When looking for evidence that something exists, it's silly to start by assuming that it is impossible. Taking any assumptions into study is bad science.
What I have been asking myself for years is: WHY?! Why kill yourself in the gym? Why try to avoid a little bit of a gut? Why feel bad for eating half of a cake? This doesn’t mean that I killed somebody, plus I left the other half of the cake for to...
I'm convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing. If one is writing for one's own pleasure, that fear may be mild — timidity is the word I've used here. If, however, one is working under deadline — a school paper, a newspaper article, t...
that there are many things that we cant understand. the past. the bad things that happened... and we become afraid. of what might happen in the future. its okay to be afraid. but we have to keep hoping and believeing... to keep hoping and trying our ...
She spoke throught her teeth. "Almost, dear. What were the real words you used? The bad words. It's okay to say them again, just this once." I shrugged, "fine. I said'. . . just 'cause Daddy wants you to suck on his ding-a-ling.
