What does a woman feel when she is hit? My mother slapped me when I was a child - on two occasions, to the point of pure hysteria; I never liked it. Those who are humiliated in such a way learn to disintegrate – that is, they become once removed fr...
Does any man have the right to dispose of his own life? This is the ultimate question of moral entitlement, and relevant only if right is relevant in this context, and it is not. A suicidal man cannot be concerned - and nor should he be - with questi...
a man who has decided upon self-destruction is far removed from mundane affairs, and to sit down and write his will would be, at that moment, an act just as absurd as winding up one’s watch, since together with the man, the whole world is destroyed...
American dream, a spouse, a brace of children, cuddly pets, coffee-table books, rusted skeleton keys, plastic cauliflower bags, business cards of business-card printers, a mound of used airmail envelopes. Old house on moving day, all echoes and lonel...
There’s a lot of things wrong with this country, but one of the few things still right with it is that a man can steer clear of the organized bullshit if he really wants to. It’s a goddamned luxury, and if I were you, I’d take advantage of it w...
The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, that one is sometimes willing to commit sins for the sake of loyalty, that one does not push asceticism to the point where it makes friendly intercourse impossible, and that one is prep...
Life, perhaps less a document than an impression, conveyed through partial glances, stream-of-consciousness juxtapositions, unpredictable rhythms, a collage of sound, a conscientious diarist, a career of blackmail and scandal culminated in murder, a ...
So much for Objective Journalism. Don't bother to look for it here--not under any byline of mine; or anyone else I can think of. With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing...
McGovern made some stupid mistakes, but in context they seem almost frivolous compared to the things Richard Nixon does every day of his life, on purpose, as a matter of policy and a perfect expression of everything he stands for. Jesus! Where will i...
That was what you did. You died. You did not know what it was about. They threw you in and told you the rules and the first time they caught you off base they killed you. Or they killed you gratuitously like Aymo. Or gave you the syphilis like Rinald...
Maybe...you'll fall in love with me all over again." "Hell," I said, "I love you enough now. What do you want to do? Ruin me?" "Yes. I want to ruin you." "Good," I said. "That's what I want too.
If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the ve...
Life always bursts the boundaries of formulas. Defeat may prove to have been the only path to resurrection, despite its ugliness. I take it for granted that to create a tree I condemn a seed to rot. If the first act of resistance comes too late it is...
But those were Frenchmen and you can work out military problems clearly when you are fighting in somebody else's country." "Yes," I replied, "when it is your own country you can not use it so scientifically." "The Russians did, to trap Napoleon." "Ye...
Satiety depends not at all on how much we eat, but on how we eat. It's the same with happiness, the very same...happiness doesn't depend on how many external blessings we have snatched from life. It depends only on our attitude toward them. There's a...
It was Carrot who'd suggested to the Patrician that hardened criminals should be given the chance to 'serve the community' by redecorating the homes of the elderly, lending a new terror to old age and, given Ankh-Morpork's crime rate, leading to at l...
I was tired and crazy and rushed, and every time I boarded a plane, I wanted the plane to crash. I envied people dying of cancer. I hated my life. I was tired and bored with my job and my furniture, and I couldn’t see any way to change things. Only...
Her books on alchemy were marvellous objects, every page a work of the engraver's art, but they nowhere contained instructions like "Be sure to open a window". They have instructions like "Adde to the Zinc untile Rising Gas Yse Vigorousky Evolved", b...
We did Rat Surprise last night for the Sons of Bloodaxe annual dinner," he said. There was a general groan. "And it rat." He raised his voice against the complaining. "You can't use anything else - - you've got to have the noses poking through the pa...
...that's the way to tell a true story from a made-up one. A made-up story always has a neat and tidy end. But true stories don't end, at least until their heroes and heroines die, and not then really because the things they did and didn't do, someti...
Until today, it really pissed me off that I'd become this totally centered Zen Master, and nobody had noticed. Still, i'm doing the little FAX thing. I write little HAIKU things and FAX them around to everyone. When i pass people in the hall at work,...
