[M]y mother read a horror novel every night. She had read every one in the library. When birthdays and Christmas would come, I would consider buying her a new one, the latest Dean R. Koontz or Stephen King or whatever, but I couldn't. I didn't want t...
It is a fact of life that oversimplified accounts of the development of science are often necessary in its teaching. Most scientific progress is a messy, complex and slow process; only with the hindsight of an overall understanding of a phenomenon ca...
Hazed by pleasure, Nix still had to know. This could be his last chance. “Nikolai,” he said thickly. “Tell me about Nikolai.” Roark’s hand drifted down over Nix’s pale torso. He eyed Nix wryly. “You have his persistence,” he allowed w...
Paris was a universe whole and entire unto herself, hollowed and fashioned by history; so she seemed in this age of Napoleon III with her towering buildings, her massive cathedrals, her grand boulevards and ancient winding medieval streets--as vast a...
The genius of the current caste system, and what most distinguishes it from its predecessors, is that it appears voluntary. People choose to commit crimes, and that's why they are locked up or locked out, we are told. This feature makes the politics ...
Not to grow up properly is to retain our 'caterpillar' quality from childhood (where it is a virtue) into adulthood (where it becomes a vice). In childhood our credulity serves us well. It helps us to pack, with extraordinary rapidity, our skulls ful...
Never talk to waiters like that," Kit said. "Can I help it," he said, "if I only went one year to finishing school?" "It isn't manners," she said like a sensible schoolteacher quietly disciplining a small boy, "it just isn't smart." I thought of the ...
Have you ever plunged into the immensity of space and time by reading the geological treatises of Cuvier? Borne away on the wings of his genius, have you hovered over the illimitable abyss of the past as if a magician's hand were holding you aloft? A...
The world of literature has everything in it, and it refuses to leave anything out. I have read like a man on fire my whole life because the genius of English teachers touched me with the dazzling beauty of language. Because of them I rode with Don Q...
To reclaim our natural power and this birthright of real magic, we must get naked and face ourselves. The truth of Who You Really Are is vast. It is genius. It crackles with electricity and sensuality and other forbidden, dangerous things. You have l...
Terence: We wrote one last night outside the mini mart. Morris called it "Stuart Drives A Comfortable Car" and then like in country songs, you know, in parentheses it says "There's Usually Someone in the Trunk." And, and um, I came up with a tune jus...
Spock: We are traveling at warp speed. How did you manage to beam aboard this ship? James T. Kirk: Hey, you're the genius. You figure it out. Spock: As acting captain of this vessel, I order you to answer the question. James T. Kirk: Well, I'm not te...
Lt. Col. Frank Slade: Ooh, but I still smell her. [inhales deeply through nose] Lt. Col. Frank Slade: Women! What can you say? Who made 'em? God must have been a fuckin' genius. The hair... They say the hair is everything, you know. Have you ever bur...
Roy: [grabbing Sebastian] If we don't find help soon, Pris hasn't got long to live. We can't allow that. [Roy goes to the chess board, studying the game in progress] Roy: Is he good? J.F. Sebastian: Who? Roy: Your opponent. J.F. Sebastian: Oh, Dr. Ty...
We await their creative interpretations of works by others and we love how they freely adapt and alter the music we like and enjoy. The wonderful magical alchemy they co-create is enough to spur the imagination of the audience. There is no need for o...
But I should caution that if you seek to plot out all your moves before you make them—if you put your faith in slow, deliberative planning in the hopes it will spare you failure down the line—well, you’re deluding yourself. For one thing, it’...
All our contemporaries...had some big ideology to live for. Everybody thought he had to either fight in Spain or die for something else, and most of us had to be in prison for one reason or another. And then at the end it turns out that none of these...
Too much possibility is the attempt by the person to overvalue the powers of the symbolic self. It reflects the attempt to exaggerate one half of the human dualism at the expense of the other. In this sense, what we call schizophrenia is an attempt b...
Generations of women have sacrificed their lives to become their mothers. But we do not have that luxury any more. The world has changed too much to let us have the lives our mothers had. And we can no longer afford the guilt we feel at not being our...
Editors can be stupid at times. They just ignore that author’s intention. I always try to read unabridged editions, so much is lost with cut versions of classic literature, even movies don’t make sense when they are edited too much. I love the lo...
Imagination is absolutely critical to the quality of our lives. Our imagination enables us to leave our routine everyday existence by fantasizing about travel, food, sex, falling in love, or having the last word—all the things that make life intere...
