Do Engineers have stories, Jack?" he asked. "What?" Jack said, without moving. "Stories. Myths. Things to keep the boredom out on a long shift." "I think they play cards, mostly," Jack answered. It was a lie, but he told it with surprising deftness; ...
Touch is a magical thing, Natti,” he explained. “It can comfort.” He raised one hand and stroked her cheek, soft and gentle. “It can entice.” His thumb moved along her jaw and applied pressure as it traveled down her neck, causing her to sh...
But words are things, and a small drop of ink, Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think; ’T is strange, the shortest letter which man uses Instead of speech, may form a las...
Was this a betrayal, or was it an act of courage? Perhaps both. Neither one involves forethought: such things take place in an instant, in an eyeblink. This can only be because they have been rehearsed by us already, over and over, in silence and dar...
I am the foremost collector of velvet Elvii in the city of Chicago," I said at once. "Elvii?" Marcone inquired. "The plural would be Elvises, I guess," I said. "But if I say that too often, I start muttering to myself and calling things 'my precious,...
Do you really think you can win?' 'Yeah. Hell, Ortega is only the third or fourth most disturbing thing I've tangled with today.' 'But even if you do win, what does it change?' 'Me getting kiilled now. That way, I get to be killed later tonight inste...
Anyway, if you need your heroes to be perfect, you won't have very many. Even Superman had his Kryptonite. I'd rather have my heroes be more like me: trying to do the right thing, sometimes messing up. Making mistakes. Saying you're sorry. And forgiv...
Later in life, I learnt that many things one may require have to be weighed against one's dignity, which can be an insuperable barrier against advancement in almost any direction. However, in those days, choice between dignity and unsatisfied curiosi...
Oh please tell me we're not doing the Poirot thing again — the suspects in the library with the candlestick or whatever'. Max looked at him [DCI Cotton]. 'Fruitcake in this case. And what would you prefer? A car chase? It’s the most efficient way...
A lot of things happen in our lives without any apparent justification. but whatever happens to us,takes us one step ahead in the path of self realisation. the truth is we all are travellers in the life's eternal journey, to meet for a short while,to...
I could tell from Anna's face that she had already told him about dancing in Saint Petersburg and that the memory weighed on her heavily. What monstrous things, our pasts, especially when they have been lovely. She had told a secret and now had the s...
A ruler must learn to persuade and not to compel... he must lay the best coffee hearth to attract the finest men... a good ruler has to learn his world's language... it's different for every world... the language of the rocks and growing things... th...
For the most part, "naturals" are myths. People who are especially good at something may have some innate inclination, or some particular talent, but they have spent about ten thousand hours practicing or doing that thing.
The thing the ecologically illiterate don't realise about an ecosystem is that it's a system. A system! A system maintains a certain fluid stability that can be destroyed by a misstep in just one niche. A system has order, flowing from point to point...
What do you always think about? What do you think you can do easily? What do you find peace in your heart to do? Watch those things carefully because among them is something on which you can turn the entire environment surrounding you for your succes...
When you believe in yourself as a great asset God created for a reason, you will rename your major successes as mere stepping stones because there are greater things that eyes have not yet seen through you, and all are embedded in the value you have ...
For Persons are selves and, in one respect at least, I was now a Not- self, simultaneously perceiving and being the Not-self of the things around me. To this new-born Not- self, the behavior, the appearance, the very thought of the self it had moment...
I tell the story to you now, but in each telling the story itself changes a little, changes direction, and that in turn changes you and me. So be very careful not only in how you repeat it but in how you remember it, goslings. More often than you rea...
When you keep hurting someone, you do one of three things. Either you fill them up with hate, and they destroy everything around them. Or you fill them up with sadness, and they destroy themselves. Or you fill them up with justice, and they try to de...
Now I have a guy trying to change me and I don’t want to be changed, yet I keep hanging in there, hoping that he learns to like what he sees. Isn't that the prime definition of insanity, repeating the same thing over and over and expecting a differ...
I say this to myself alone: when you feel crushed, those around you look broken. When you glow, darkness turns to black light. If you hurt, even the comforts you are offered wound you. As you prosper, your failures prove to be just the right thing, p...
