Intelligent people know they are intelligent. They also know that one person cannot know all, hence a person is not stupid simply because he is ignorant of one thing or another. They know that, to another intelligent person, they will not appear stup...
I came here because it's pine-dark and the ocean is wild. The kind of quiet-noise you need when there's too much going on in your head. Like the water and the woods are doing all the feeling, and I can hang out, quiet as a headstone, in a between pla...
. I have never lived anywhere but New York or New England, but there are times when I'm talking to you and I hit a Southern vowel, or a word gets caught in a Suthern truncation, and I know it's because I'm swimming in your cadences, that you penetrat...
While my sister and I were reminded we did not cause this pain, it was knowing that because we broke our silence about what had been done to us, our parents were hurting. That knowledge was hard on us.
...his soul (was) ringing like a well-struck bell. But it was a bell that rang with more than joy and adoration — there was the sound there too of anger and resentment. She would not look at him because she did not want to be in his presence. She h...
What most people don't realize is that when you decide to write and publish a book, it's not for stardom, or for fame, it's because you have a story that's inside of you that is dying to get out! You don't just come up with it one day, it's a thought...
I travel because it makes me realize how much I haven't seen, how much I'm not going to see, and how much I still need to see." - The Legacy Letters, by Carew Papritz
Now don't let us give ourselves a parcel of airs, and pretend that the oaths we make free with in this land of liberty of ours are our own; and because we have the spirit to swear them,—imagine that we have had the wit to invent them too.
Because it’s not true that suffering purifies people; that we become better, wiser, more understanding in the process. We become cold and indifferent. When, for the first time in our lives, we properly understand our fate, we become almost calm. Ca...
She knew there were words so terrible you heard them with your whole body. Guilty. And there were voices to say them. She knew there were people you might almost trust who would hear them, too, and be amazed, and still not really hear them because th...
Halfhearted or insincere apologies are often worse than not apologizing at all because recipients find them insulting. If you've done something wrong in your dealings with another person, it's as if there's an infection in your relationship. A good a...
There’s always that first step in skating, from dry ground to slick ice, when it just seems impossible. Impossible that two thin blades of metal will support you, impossible that because its molecules have begun to dance a little slower water will ...
Most things that are true are simple. To lose weight, eat less than you burn. To reduce stress, find a job you love. To resolve conflict, be patient and peaceful. These are very, very simple in that they are complete concepts that take no more than a...
When I go to the bathrooms, I cannot take off my pants as before; because there is a light continuously blinking like a camera, everyone says it is just an environmental friendly lighting. Well, I cannot really trust it and I am not taking the risk o...
We tell our stories, especially as young people, in part because we want them to be true. We want life to be full of adventure and creativity and daring that might, just might, be real.
I have heard it said that a happy childhood is a curse, because what follows can never measure up. All I can say is, those people must want too much; they can't accept that life is a series of struggles and that happiness can be found in overcoming t...
...kids marked by the special thinness that one has only once, the transparent thinness of early maturity, when, without knowing it, you are immortal. And completely permeable. When you can walk indifferently down the street with a lover because you ...
I figured out why I have such big hands. It’s to hold all the love I have to offer the world. So don’t get mad at me when I make you bring in all the groceries, because my hands are already full.
While the Christian faith clearly teaches that believers are to be involved as good citizens in the state, nevertheless, it is obvious why so many secularists are addicted to politics because political power is a surrogate for a Higher Power.
I don't care if your dad is the Sultan of Brunei. You happened to be born into a privileged family. What you do with that truth is completely up to you. I'm here because I want to be with you. But if I didn't, all the money in the world wouldn't have...
I was sad to leave, but I was also pleased to have met people outside of Sierra Leone. Because if I was to get killed upon my return, I knew that a memory of my existence was alive somewhere in the world.
