For myself, I haven't been content to carry on producing books that merely strain against the conventions - as I've grown older, and realised that there aren't that many books left for me to write, so I've become determined that they should be the fi...
You can always spot a 'television personality', even when they aren't actually on television, because they carry their 'made-up' persona in front of them, like some sort of baffler, or Ready Brek force field. Their reach for notoriety predicated on t...
A good sherris-sack hath a twofold operation in it. It ascends me into the brain, dries me there all the foolish and dull and crudy vapors which environ it, makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes, which,...
The quality of mercy is not strained; It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed; It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes. 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes The throned monarch better than ...
You know that sickening feeling of inadequacy and over-exposure you feel when you look upon your own empurpled prose? Relax into the awareness that this ghastly sensation will never, ever leave you, no matter how successful and publicly lauded you be...
My theory was that if I like a confident, cheerful person, eventually I would buy it myself, and become that. I always had traces of strength somewhere inside me, it wasn't fake, it was just a way of summoning my courage to the fore and not letting a...
The woman knows from living with the abusive man that there are no simple answers. Friends say: “He’s mean.” But she knows many ways in which he has been good to her. Friends say: “He treats you that way because he can get away with it. I wou...
Even knowing that my presence brought a shadow over the lives of my loved ones, I can't regret the experiences I've had with them. They gave me life, becoming an integral part of my soul. They healed me when I was broken and somehow they recovered th...
Yet, when these facts are seen side by side with other facts in the case, it is difficult not to become lost in superstitious awe. Their very absurdity seems to prohibit the use of the words 'chance' and 'coincidence.' For the sceptic there remains o...
The deeper irony is that the evidence of sin that are always found in and around the body of Christ may become indirect intimations of its holiness. It could not be a holy church if it had clean hands, as if severed from its task of saving sinners an...
When that part of the woman meets with a man, all the flowers in the world suddenly bloom! All the birds of the world gather together and sing. The entire world turns golden, and your body becomes completely relaxed and you're not sure whether you're...
Dave Concepción exceeded everyone’s expectations—everyone’s except, perhaps, his own. That’s because as a kid, Concepción idolized Major League Hall of Fame shortstop and fellow-Venezuelan Luis Aparicio, and he aspired to become that same c...
The universe uses every experience you have to help you grow and learn. No experience is wasted. Every choice you make and everything that happens to you because of other people’s choices become your perfect lessons. As you learn to trust this trut...
We are a culture that relies on technology over community, a society in which spoken and written words are cheap, easy to come by, and excessive. Our culture says anything goes; fear of God is almost unheard of. We are slow to listen, quick to speak,...
I have a strange illusion quite often. I think I've become deaf. I have to make a little noise to prove I'm not. I clear my throat to show myself that everything is normal. It's like the little Japanese girl they found in the ruins of Hiroshima. Ever...
If I could turn my thoughts into spoken words and share them with someone, they’d become real and mean something. Now, they were only lines that could be erased when I didn’t feel them anymore or hopeful thoughts that, like shadows, would disappe...
Hate feeds on your heart and pollutes your mind. It makes you lose sight of reality and forces you to focus on animosity instead of love. Hate makes you less of a person, because the borders of hate are so expansive they leave no room for anything el...
the Church of Rome, formerly the most holy of all Churches, has become the most lawless den of thieves, the most shameless of all brothels, the very kingdom of sin, death, and hell; so that not even antichrist, if he were to come, could devise any ad...
The first step toward change is awareness. If you want to get from where you are to where you want to be, you have to start by becoming aware of the choices that lead you away from your desired destination.
A woman in her glory, a woman of beauty, is a woman who is not striving to become beautiful or worthy or enough. She knows in her quiet center where God dwells that he find her beautiful, has deemed her worthy, and in him, she is enough.
We say we long for intimacy with God and others, and yet we structure our lives so that this becomes impossible. One might think we are avoiding intimacy, that maybe we really like our finely managed lives just the way they are.
