You arrogant...” thrust through the stomach of a snapping zombie, twisting and using all my strength to cleave him in half “... over published...” wasn't going to work, it clawed at the blade, and my God, these things were tough, “...showy ol...
Who is he anyhow, an actor?" "No." "A dentist?" "...No, he's a gambler." Gatsby hesitated, then added cooly: "He's the man who fixed the World Series back in 1919." "Fixed the World Series?" I repeated. The idea staggered me. I remembered, of course,...
Gray rested his hand on Aric’s knee. “Sacrificed yourself, j-just like the giants.” “But I didn’t mean to! It’s only… the prince fell over the cliff, and I didn’t think at all, I just moved. I was the tallest and the strongest. I don�...
Back then, living hadn't had any meaning. Every so often, without any warning or any real reason, he'd even caught himself thinking, 'Maybe I'll try dying.' He'd had one foot in the world of the dead, and yet the other foot had been chained to the wo...
I wished for death," he whispered, and the words took the smile from both our lips. His gaze met mine again, this time it was earnest and beseeching. "I knew I could not leave you behind, so I planned to kill you first. I could not. I sat here with t...
If God created our will, then he's responsible for every choice we make... So-- as I recall, the official philosophical answer is that free will doesn't exist. Only the illusion of free will, because the causes of hour behavior are so complex that we...
Along with the mystical wonderment and sense of ecological responsibility that comes with the recognition of connectedness, more disturbing images come to mind. When applied to economics, connectedness seems to take the form of chain stores, multinat...
It is well that there are palaces of peace And discipline and dreaming and desire, Lest we forget our heritage and cease The Spirit’s work—to hunger and aspire: Lest we forget that we were born divine, Now tangled in red battle’s animal net, Mu...
The key to the scientist's purpose is the idea that every phenomenon is the product of a certain given set of condition. In his laboratory he hopes to reconstitute the set of conditions, however complex they may be, which, once they are fully reconst...
Keith: I've been thinking about what you said, about that concrete goal. Alan Ascher: And? Keith: I think I've nailed it. I feel really good about this one, Al. Alan Ascher: Lay it on me. Keith: It's a girl. Alan Ascher: Cool. What's she like? Keith:...
Judah Ben-Hur: What has become of my mother and my sister? Messala: It is not my duty to keep track of prisoners. Judah Ben-Hur: Find them, Messala. Restore them to me and I will forget what I vowed with every stroke of that oar you chained me to. Me...
In The Republic, Plato imagines human beings chained for the duration of their lives in an underground cave, knowing nothing but darkness. Their gaze is confined to the cave wall, upon which shadows of the world are thrown. They believe these flicker...
For if in careless summer days In groves of Ashtaroth we whored, Repentant now, when winds blow cold, We kneel before our rightful lord; The lord of all, the money-god, Who rules us blood and hand and brain, Who gives the roof that stops the wind, An...
A sous-chef with dreams of her own restaurant empire may have mastered the art of classical French sauce making, but not yet have developed the signature cooking style she imagines as the cornerstone of her own chain of restaurants. She gauges her pr...
Everything has a past, a voice, existed at some point, even things as small and seemingly meaningless as a house in a huge suburb. It’s a house like every other house… but at some point a family lived there, made it theirs, made it important. Whe...
In our tribunal, we look only at personal criminal responsibility in a very tightly defined, narrow way and we demand proof beyond a resonable doubt about the involvement of the individual. We do no have a mandate to establish the moral responsibilit...
May it [American independence] be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them t...
The cracks grew over him like vines, faster and faster. At first he bucked, whinnying metallic screeches. Then he gradually stilled, looking up at me with frightened glass eyes. He was growing. New, molten glass leeched out between his fissures, cool...
Much of our food system depends on our not knowing much about it, beyond the price disclosed by the checkout scanner; cheapness and ignorance are mutually reinforcing. And it's a short way from not knowing who's at the other end of your food chain to...
A tailwind, on the other hand, is one of the most beautiful experiences you can have on a bike. There’s no wind in my ears, so I hear everything around me. The chain purrs sweetly as it pulls the gears under the coaxing of my legs. The soft hiss of...
Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other...
