Before her marriage she had thought that she had love within her grasp; but since the happiness which she had expected this love to bring her hadn’t come, she supposed she must have been mistaken. And Emma tried to imagine just what was meant, in l...
Would you like to borrow a pair of my panties to wave around at the next Council meeting to get the point across?” His eyes flashed. “Got any to spare?” I could’ve picked somebody rational. But no, I had to fall in love with this arrogant idi...
I,” I’ll type. And that will be enough. Then there are the other days, when nothing is enough. The poem grins. It grins because it knows it is a terrible poem. It grins in embarrassment. It grins in pity. It grins in superiority. I may be a terri...
I said in a previous chapter that chastity was the most unpopular of the Christian virtues. But I am not sure I was right. I believe there is one even more unpopular. It is laid down in the Christian rule, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' B...
I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I'm gone which would not h...
The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, ...
They can fatten me up. They can give me a full body polish, dress me up, and make me beautiful again. They can design dream weapons that come to life in my hands, but they will never again brainwash me into the necessity of using them. I no longer fe...
It's so weird how life is so full of moving around--people coming and going, people passing by each other all day long. You never know which person's going to steal your heart. You never know which is going to settle your soul. All you can do is look...
Waking up begins with saying am and now. That which has awoken then lies for a while staring up at the ceiling and down into itself until it has recognized I, and therefrom deduced I am, I am now. Here comes next, and is at least negatively reassurin...
How come you like Josh so much anyway? All he does is sit around drinking overpriced coffee and bitching about how awful things are" "He cares about the world." "If he cared about the world, he'd donate the ten thousand dollars he must spend on coffe...
The unfortunate are not as miserable as the world imagines. That urchins, the handicapped, orphans, prisoners and others are much happier than people think. And that language is a trap, that a dark evolutionary force has created languages to limit hu...
So you're here by yourself?" “Yes." “Seems like an odd place to come by yourself." “I needed to get away." “Woman trouble? That's another of my father's expressions." “No, actually. I poisoned my neighbor's dogs." After a moment she said, �...
Everyone who is educated today wants to sit at a comfortable desk under a fan and live in an air-conditioned house surrounded by a garden, coming and going in an American car as wide as the street. If we do not tear out this disease by the roots we s...
Every person comes with a place. It can be a house, a park, a building. When you meet someone, you are unknowingly meeting a place, a two-for-one deal that neither party is really aware of yet. Regular Joe’s is Marcus’ place. Mine is the library,...
Now, come over here so I can pat you down." "But you don't have-" Percy stopped. "Uh, sure." He stood next to the armless statue. Terminus conducted a rigorous mental pat down. "You seem to be clean," Terminus decided. "Do you have anything to declar...
Percy smiled. He knew the stakes were high. He knew this day could go horribly wrong. But he also knew that Annabeth was on that ship.If things went , this would be the best day of his life. He threw one arm around Hazel and one arm around Frank. "Co...
Hudson looks at me, waiting for what I was trying to say, but no matter how many times I try, the words won’t come. My chest contracts, and panic knocks my thoughts into disarray faster than a tornado. For years, I was silent by choice. Now, chokin...
But I have long loved the written word, and come to see in it the power of the sleeping lion. This is my name. This is who I am. This is how I got here. In the absence of an audience, I will write down my story so that it waits like a restful beast w...
Education continued to come under particularly strong fire...: If women learned how to manage in the world as well as men, if they learned about history and politics and studied for a profession, of course they would soon be demanding a voice and a r...
My parents didn't raise me to be religious. The closest we come to worship is the Trinity of Visa, Mastercard, and American Express. I think the Merryweather cheerleaders confuse me because I missed out on Sunday School. It has to be a miracle. There...
You keep out of my bed,” said Danny, for he knew that Joe Portagee had come to stay. The way he sat in a chair and crossed his knees had an appearance of permanence.