It was because he wanted there to be conspirators. It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn't th...
The thing about real life is, when you do something stupid, it normally costs you. In books the heroes can make as many mistakes as they like. It doesn't matter what they do, because everything works out in the end. They'll beat the bad guys and put ...
This is what you British do not understand about the French. You think you must work, work, work, work and open on Sundays and make mothers and fathers with families slave in supermarkets at three o'clock in the morning and make people leave their ho...
The things people say of a man do not alter a man. He is what he is. Public opinion is of no value whatsoever. Even if people employ actual violence, they are not to be violent in turn. That would be to fall to the same low level. After all, even in ...
My grandfather was crying. The kind of quiet that is quiet and a secret. The kind of crying that only I noticed. I thought about him going into my mom's room when she was little and hitting my mom and holding up her report card and saying that her ba...
It’s sad really, trying to appreciate all of the great events in our lives and all the amazingly good days. Sometimes it seems like we take them for granted, until something bad comes along to put us back into perspective. Are these bad events cata...
Jeeter?" Grace whispered into her walkie-talkie. "Are you awake?" She waited. A few weeks ago, she and Jeeter had started chatting on their walkie-talkies late at night when she couldn't sleep. He always answered her call no matter how late it was. "...
Once upon a time, my government turned my city into a police state, kidnapped me, and tortured me. When I got free, I decided that the problem wasn’t the system, but who was running it. Bad guys had gotten into places of high office. We needed good...
One thing I love about life and God: the creator of life. Within a blink of an eye; things can change either good or bad. It depends on how you want it. Good in the sense that luck will come to you; if you wish, want, need or even require the good ch...
Marlin: [Surrounded by jellyfish] This is bad, Dory. Very bad. Dory: [Bouncing on top of a jellyfish] Hey, watch this. Boing! Boing!... Marlin: Dory! Dory: You can't catch me! Marlin: Dory, don't bounce on the tops! They will... not sting you. The to...
Dory: [At the entrance to the trench] Come on, let's go. Marlin: No, no, no! Bad trench, bad trench! Come on, we're swimming over this thing. Dory: Whoa, partner. Little red flag going up. Something tells me we should go through it, not over it. Marl...
Tuco: [to his brother the priest] While I'm waiting for the Lord to remember me, I, Tuco Ramirez, brother of "Brother" Ramirez will tell you something! You think you're better than I am... where we came from, if one did not want to die in poverty, on...
Howard Beale: What is finished... is the idea that this great country is dedicated to the freedom and flourishing of every individual in it. It's the individual that's finished. It's the single, solitary human being that's finished. It's every single...
Jack Sparrow: Anamaria. [Anamaria slaps Jack] Will Turner: I suppose, you didn't deserve that one either? Jack Sparrow: No, that one I deserved. Anamaria: You stole my boat! Jack Sparrow: Actually... Anamaria: [Anamaria slaps Jack again] Jack Sparrow...
I've been working hard at assuming Court polish, but the more I learn about what really goes on behind the pretty voices and waving fans and graceful bows, the more I comprehend that what is really said matters little, so long as the manner in which ...
Silence!” Korbolo snapped. He eyed Duiker. “You are the historian who rode with Coltaine.” The historian faced him. “I am.” “You are a soldier.” “As you say.” “I do, and so you shall die with these soldiers, in a manner no differe...
No attempt should be made to "reconcile" Yahweh's hardening of Pharaoh's heart (plagues 6,8,9,10) with statements in the other plagues that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. The tension cannot be resolved in a facile manner by suggesting, for example, ...
Considering how much we are all given to discuss the characters of others, and discuss them often not in the strictest spirit of charity, it is singular how little we are inclined to think that others can speak ill-naturedly of us, and how angry and ...
People who wrote novels about universities hardly ever got them right. Max had spent his short working life untenured, but still he'd managed to be a charming magnet wherever he taught, and Amy had surfeited on faculty gossip and professorial antics ...
For if we see that the sun, in sending forth its rays upon the earth, to generate, cherish, and invigorate its offspring, in a manner transfuses its substance into it, why should the radiance of the Spirit be less in conveying to us the communion of ...
I had a dream about you. You were crying, and I couldn’t tell if it was because you were sad or because you’d been laughing too hard. So I decided to find out by telling you that I’d just heard from the cops, and your mother had been murdered. ...
