Woodward and Bernstein,” Jared said from seemingly nowhere. “What?” “They were just two reporters. Yet, they broke the Watergate scandal. They toppled an administration. That’s us.” “We’re Woodward and Bernstein.” Alec said, pointin...
I think as the world changes, we have to keep up. We have to note what is happening, and I think writing has always had a powerful corrective influence and possibility. We have to write about what's good, and we also have to write about parts of our ...
Grace cannot be confused with righteousness. Grace is receiving what we do not deserve; mercy is not receiving what we do deserve. Righteousness, on the other hand, includes what most of us would consider difficult matters, such as punishment, correc...
Speak as educated nature suggests to you, and you will do well, but let it be educated and not raw, rude, uncultivated nature. Demosthenes took unbounded pains with his voice, and Cicero, who was naturally weak, made a long journey into Greece to cor...
A monomaniac is a sick person whose mentality is perfectly healthy in all respects but one; he has a single flaw, clearly localized. At times, for example, he has an unreasonable and absurd desire to drink or steal or use abusive language; but all hi...
Self talk and self prayer: When you audible the first and correctly interpret, the white coats correct you in a nuthouse. When you audible the second and misinterpret, the dinner coats swear you to an oath in the White House. Does this make you nuts ...
I recognize I have faults. I'm accountable for them, and I try to do what I can to correct them. I will say that it's unfortunate that everything I do is scrutinized to the point that it is. Frankly, I don't watch the news, I stay away from political...
If the rules of a language are followed, words usually make sense. But these very rules can stir the impulse to rebel. We're obliged to keep trying to convey meaning through correct sentences. After a while, the good-soldier rigidity of polished pros...
Doc Morris: Wow, this isn't an act, is it? You really aren't a pleasant person. Hank Palmer: Right now? I'm a summer breeze. Once I subpoena you, get you on the stand and extract the truth from your ass like tree sap THEN you'll realize in THAT momen...
Archivist: The report said Commander Chang was killed in the assault. Sonmi-451: That is correct. Archivist: Would you say that you loved him? Sonmi-451: Yes, I do. Archivist: Do you mean, you are still, in love with him? Sonmi-451: I mean, that I wi...
Billy Ray: [posing as "Nenge Mboko," an exchange student from Cameroon] Merry New Year! Beeks: That's "happy." In this country we say "Happy New Year." Billy Ray: Oh, ho, ho, thank you for correcting my English which stinks!
Take stock of your thoughts and behavior. Each night ask yourself, when were you negative when you could have been positive? When did you withhold love when you might have given it? When did you play a neurotic game instead of behaving in a powerful ...
I send my friends e-mail messages about the progress of my garden, especially of my roses. It left them with the impression, I think, that I was concerned with nothing else. I felt no urgency in correcting that notion. People obsessed with their gard...
The moment of confession is not merely when one hears another pronounce the words: God forgives you, or 'in God's name I absolve you.' Rather it is that point at which the sinner unfeignedly experiences himself as truly judged and pardoned by God.
Sins that have been completely absolved on one occasion sometimes on other occasions cannot be completely forgotten or set aside. They may continue to have a ripple effect. But it is comforting to realize that they are no longer remembered by God, ev...
The deeper irony is that the evidence of sin that are always found in and around the body of Christ may become indirect intimations of its holiness. It could not be a holy church if it had clean hands, as if severed from its task of saving sinners an...
There's a grosser irony about Politically Correct English. This is that PCE purports to be the dialect of progressive reform but is in fact - in its Orwellian substitution of the euphemisms of social equality for social equality itself - of vastly mo...
The Astors and the Vanderbilts, their pleasure domes and money: she was sick of it. Sick of envying, sick of herself. She didn't understand antiques or architecture, she couldn't draw like Sylvia, she didn't read like Ted, she had few interests and n...
Ideas do have consequences in history, yet not because those ideas are inherently truthful or obviously correct but rather because of the way they are embedded in very powerful institutions, networks, interests, and symbols.
Random search for data on ... off-chance is hardly scientific. A questionnaire on 'Intellectual Immoralities' was circulated by a well-known institution. 'Intellectual Immorality No. 4' read: 'Generalizing beyond one's data'. [Wilder Dwight] Bancroft...
She needs a new journal. The one she has is problematic. To get to the present, she needs to page through the past, and when she does, she remembers things, and her new journal entries become, for the most part, reactions to the days she regrets, wan...
