On weekdays, as soon as she picked Bela from the bus stop and brought her home, she went straight into the kitchen, washing up the morning dishes she'd ignored, then getting dinner started. She measured out the nightly cup of rice, letting it soak in...
Recollection of death also serves as a useful preparation for the time when one actually has to face death. As the concluding exercise among the body contemplations, a regular recollection of death can lead to the realization that death is fearful on...
... was the great and general renunciation which old age makes in preparation for death, the chrysalis stage of life, which may be observed wherever life has been unduly prolonged; even in old lovers who have lived for one another with the utmost int...
Are you prepared?" she asked when the other Valkyries had their passengers in place. "Sure," Matt said. "But we could use a soundtrack this time. Maybe a little Wagner. Da-da-da DUM dum." Hildar looked back at hiim blankly. "Wagner? Ride of the Valky...
Religions and states and classes and tribes and nations do not have to work or argue for their adherents and subjects. They more or less inherit them. Against this unearned patrimony there have always been speakers and writers who embody Einstein's i...
The terror of being judged sharpens the memory: it sends an inevitable glare over that long-unvisited past which has been habitually recalled only in general phrases. Even without memory, the life is bound into one by a zone of dependence in growth a...
I used to listen to the monks repeating the Lord's Prayer; I wondered how they could continue to pray without misgiving to their heavenly father to give them their daily bread. Do children beseech their earthly father to give them sustenance? They ex...
Do not worry in the least about yourself, leave all worry to God,' - this appears to be the commandment in all religions. This need not frighten anyone. He who devotes himself to service with a clear conscience, will day by day grasp the necessity fo...
The most thoroughly and relentlessly damned, banned, excluded, condemned, forbidden, ostracized, ignored, suppressed, repressed, robbed, brutalized and defamed of all 'Damned Things' is the individual human being. The social engineers, statisticians,...
Aestheticism and radicalism must lead us to jettison reason, and to replace it by a desperate hope for political miracles. This irrational attitude which springs from intoxication with dreams of a beautiful world is what I call Romanticism. It may se...
If you want to be relevant only in your household, then you only need to know the things that are important in your house, and if you want to be relevant in your neighborhood, you need to know what's important in your neighborhood. The same thing app...
They danced again, and when the assembly closed, parted, on the lady’s side at least, with a strong inclination for continuing the acquaintance. Whether she thought of him so much while she drank her warm wine and water and prepared herself for bed...
Children are taught to look down on their nurses (nannies), to treat them as mere servants. When their task is completed the child is withdrawn or the nurse is dismissed. Her visits to her foster-child are discouraged by a cold reception. After a few...
Decide. Take one of the most unsettling things you feel exist in your life and decide. Decide to meet it with love and understanding. Decide to meet it with a proactive spirit that believes that a solution, an ease, a peaceful resolve rests in the me...
Capt. T.G. Culpeper: [into a phone] Ginger, I want you to prepare yourself for a little shock. When I tell you what happened... Ginger Culpeper: [voice] So, tell me, tell me. I've got this biscuit dough... Capt. T.G. Culpeper: The Smiler Grogan case ...
The Gunsmith: Over what range will you fire? The Jackal: I'm not sure yet but probably not more than 400 feet The Gunsmith: Will the gentleman be moving? The Jackal: Stationary. The Gunsmith: Will you go for a head shot or a chest shot? The Jackal: P...
Indiana Jones: [shouting, as the boat is being chopped up by a propeller] Why are you trying to kill us? Kazim: Because you are looking for the Holy Grail! Indiana Jones: My *father* was looking for the Holy Grail! Did you kill him too? Kazim: No! In...
Aragorn: [to the corsair ships] You may go no further! You will not enter Gondor. Captain: Who are you to deny us passage? Aragorn: Legolas, fire a warning shot past the bosun's ear. Gimli: Mind your aim! [Legolas aims; Gimli knocks the bow as he sho...
Bryan: [to Marko, while preparing him for torture] You know, we used to outsource this kind of thing. But what we found was the countries we outsourced to had unreliable power grids. Very Third World. You'd turn on a switch - power wouldn't come on, ...
Ryan Bingham: Natalie, what is it you think we do here? Natalie Keener: We prepare the newly unemployed for the emotional and physical hurdles of job hunting, while minimizing legal blow-back. Ryan Bingham: That's what we're selling. It's not what we...
Eddie Valiant: So that's why you killed Acme and Maroon? For this freeway? I don't get it. Judge Doom: Of course not. You lack vision, but I see a place where people get on and off the freeway. On and off, off and on all day, all night. Soon, where T...
