What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!' Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evi...
Did you follow me from the party?" "Yes" "I didn't even know you were there." His dark clothes indicated he must have been on guardian duty at the party. "So you saw the illustrious Janine cause a commotion by dragging me out." "It wasn't a commotion...
It’s really important to not allow rejection to define who you are. Just because someone did not value or approve of you does not mean you should give up on yourself or let go of the amazing dreams you have on the inside.
Abby wouldn't want you to suffer because of some jerk that kidnapped her. She would want you to go on your trip so that she would have fun torturing you for not being a puddle on the ground with a box of tissues and an empty gallon of ice cream by yo...
Murderers don't get forgiven just because we promise to be good from now on. We have to earn our way back. One hundred is the price. One hundred lives for each we took. That seems fair. That's how we get whole again and that's our work, from now unti...
Sometimes I almost pity them. I think I have a freedom they cannot understand. No insult, no blame can touch me. Because I have set myself beyond the pale. I am nothing, I am hardly human any more. I am the French Lieutenant’s Whore.
And even in the fever of epidemic arrests, when people leaving for work said farewell to their families every day, because they could not be certain they would return at night, even then almost no one tried to run away and only in rare cases did peop...
There comes a time, you have to stop running, stop pretending, and just be the man you were meant to be. It doesn't matter what it costs, because to not be that man, that’ll cost you your soul. What am I going to do? I’m going to love him until t...
I don't care if your the President of the United States, the Queen of England, the inventor of the microchip, a bankable movie star, or an ordinary Joe or Jill, you're no paragon in my book, but the same as a zebra or gazelle - a source of protein. I...
This is not a book about whether one can be good without God, because that question does not need to be answered --it needs to be rejected outright. To suggest that one can't be good without belief in God is not just an opinion, a mere curious musing...
You're weird,' she said. 'You don't have any friends.' 'I didn't come here for friends,' said Bod truthfully. "i came here to learn.' Mo's nose twitched. "Do you know how weird that is?' she asked. "Nobody comes to school to learn. I mean, you come b...
Because," he said in an even voice, "you're used to winning, so you don't even think about how, every time there's a game, both sides get that 'rah, rah, team' speech from their coaches both sides hear 'you're the best!' 'You've got to win!' 'You're ...
Indeed, organizing atheists has been compared to herding cats, because they tend to think independently and will not conform to authority. But a good first step would be to build up a critical mass of those willing to 'come out,' thereby encouraging ...
I resolved to tell my guardian that I doubted Orlick being the right sort of man to fill a post of trust at Miss Havisham’s. ‘Why of course he is not the right sort of man, Pip,’ said my guardian, comfortably satisfied beforehand on the general...
Perhaps reading and writing books is one of the last defences human dignity has left, because in the end they remind us of what God once reminded us before He too evaporated in this age of relentless humiliations—that we are more than ourselves; th...
A book has been taken. A book has been taken? You summoned the Watch," Carrot drew himself up proudly, "because someone's taken a ? You think that's worse than murder?" The Librarian gave him the kind of look other people would reserve for people who...
The story of my own childhood is a complicated sentence that I am always trying to finish, to finish and put behind me. It resists finishing, and partly this is because words are not enough; my early world was synaesthesic, and I am haunted by the gh...
Bang bang bang. I understand now why so many horror movies use that device-the mysterious knock on the door-because it has the weight of a nightmare. You don't know what's out there, yet you know you'll open it. You'll think what I think: No one bad ...
I'm not bloody well going to have it, understand?" Vimes shouted, shaking the ape back and forth. "Oook," the Librarian pointed out, patiently. "What? Oh. Sorry." Vimes lowered the ape, who wisely didn't make an issue out of it because a man angry en...
He felt an appetite for once, one that it'd take more than a drink or two to satisfy. He strolled along for breakfast at Harga's House of Ribs, the habit of years, and got another unpleasant surprise. Normally the only decoration in there was in Sham...
New York was packed with writers, real writers, because there were magazines, real magazines, loads of them. This was back when the Internet was still some exotic pet kept in the corner of the publishing world--throw some kibble at it, watch it dance...