Roberto knew that he now had the power to influence the future. He needed to send a message back, and whatever he chose to say would affect Rosa and would help to guide her future choices. He felt a strong sense of guilt and responsibility about the ...
You may not mean to, but you do seem to look down your nose at many of us mere mortals muddling along down here. I feel as though you think everyone should be better than they are. I certainly think you expect me to behave like some sort of perfect p...
The Tao Te Ching is partly in prose, partly in verse; but as we define poetry now, not by rhyme and meter but as a patterned intensity of language, the whole thing is poetry. I wanted to catch that poetry, its terse, strange beauty. Most translations...
I miss the honor of serving as a parish pastor. There is nothing quite like it. The most challenging aspect of the job is that you just can't please everybody all the time, no matter how hard you try. But the greatest honor of the office, from my per...
Escapism sold books, to be sure, but not nearly as many as were sold by exposing America’s flaws and making the average American reader (and book club member) look closely at his or her most cherished social assumptions. Americans might not be eage...
This little book has been written in the hope that it may appeal to several classes of readers. Not infrequently I have been asked by friends of different callings in life to recommend them some book on mimicry which shall be reasonably short, well i...
AND where did the books go when the world turned against them? When the flames of wrath blackened their pages and erased the words, they fled to find solace and redemption in the dark places of the world. “They were exiled into darkness so their ow...
Who are we without our addictions; without our media-induced hungers? So often the voices we hear echoing in our mind are not our own but that of our influencers. Isolation, while arguably going against human nature, is essential for mental and emoti...
I’m feeling a low regarding writing. I sometimes think I should finish working on my book of stripper poetry that I started, but other times I feel like it’s not worth it. Sometimes I think I should work on my comic book idea, and then other time...
The gods weave misfortunes for men, so that the generations to come will have something to sing about.” Mallarmé repeats, less beautifully, what Homer said; “tout aboutit en un livre,” everything ends up in a book. The Greeks speak of generati...
Agatha had rose-colored cheeks, and thorn-like warts all over her slender neck. When we’d make love, I’d pretend I was Helen Keller and her neck was the Book of Love. I like to think I wrote that book, but I didn’t. Orafoura did.
This book might also be seen as “a Christian primer.” A primer teaches us how to read. Reading is not just about learning to recognize and pronounce words, but also about how to hear and understand them. This book’s purpose is to help us to rea...
Shakespeare 'never owned a book,' a writer for the New York Times gravely informed readers in one doubting article in 2002. The statement cannot actually be refuted, for we know nothing about his incidental possessions. But the writer might just as w...
In the sort of screen dappled with different states of mind which my consciousness would simultaneously unfold while I read, and which ranged from the aspirations hidden deepest within me to the completely exterior vision of the horizon which I had, ...
There's a scientific hypothesis that every person's name is a primary suggestive command that contains the entire script of their life in highly concentrated form. . . . According to this point of view, there is only a limited number of names, becaus...
No, I have never had a problem finding books to read. But I have had a problem finding people who understand what it's like to really LOVE reading. Maybe even need it. People who associate periods of their life with the kinds of things they were read...
A painter,” he said, as though the word were an insult. “I’m a .” “You’re a ? a writer.” “What do you write?” “Stories. Books. A book. Fiction.” “Fiction. . That’s not writing.” “What do you write?” “I write the trut...
An acquaintanceship with the literature of the world may be won by any person who will devote half an hour a day to the careful reading of the best books. The habit of reading good books is one that gives great comfort in all the stages and among all...
Put out my eyes, and I can see you still; slam my ears to, and I can hear you yet; and without any feet can go to you; and tongueless, I can conjure you at will. Break off my arms, I shall take hold of you and grasp you with my heart as with a hand; ...
Percy does not like it when I read a book. He puts his face over the top of it, and moans. He rolls his eyes, sometimes he sneezes. The sun is up, he says, and the wind is down. The tide is out, and the neighbor's dogs are playing. But Percy, I say, ...
She was a fascinating character, to say the least. A pioneer and instigator of many weird and wooly projects and who liked to “instigate” you right along with her. Every village has one, and Doris was ours. A lively individual who was always thro...
