I don't understand why people never say what they mean. It's like the immigrants who come to a country and learn the language but are completely baffled by idioms. (Seriously, how could anyone who isn't a native English speaker 'get the picture,' so ...
Never before had I known the sudden quiver of understanding that travels from word to brain to heart, the way a new language can move, coil, swim into life under the eyes, the almost savage leap of comprehension, the instantaneous, joyful release of ...
The working people of the Flint area hated this rag, but it was our only daily so you read it. Everyone called it the "Flint Urinal." Editorially, the paper had historically been on the wrong side of every major social and political issue of the twen...
She fit her hand around the curve of his whiskered jaw. “I’m sorry. But I knew you would not leave otherwise—” “Damn right I would not have left,” he said gruffly. “Don’t you understand what you mean to me? You are everything. Never d...
When someone says so-and-so’s opinionated, what’s that mean? Aren’t we all opinionated? Show me one person with no opinions, and I’ll show you a bowl of Jell-O—or a politician, whichever one’s dumber.
I am not a Pessimist. Indeed I am not sure that I quite know what Pessimism really means. All I do know is that life cannot be understood without much charity, it cannot be lived without much charity. It is love, and not German philosophy, that is th...
I finally understand that it’s okay to be a little afraid of things but that obsessing over them does not mean you have any more control over what you fear.
Kenji snorts.“That’s because you’re not fragile,” Kenji says. “If anything, everyone needs to protect themselves from you. You’re like a freaking beast,” he says. Then adds, “I mean, you know—like, a cute beast. A little beast that ...
I've never had a home before." That must have been all the sweets talking; I'd never have told him otherwise. "I mean, staying with Li, I never felt like I belonged. That's all." Sam touched my wrist, making me shiver. "You always have a home with me...
But when I touch you, your aura … it . The colors deepen, it burns more intensely, the purple increases. Why? Why, Sydney?” He used that hand to pull me closer. “Why do you react that way if I don’t mean anything to you?” There was a desper...
So, what's this mean exactly?" he asked."You finally come around, and now you're going to just end things because of her?" "Kissing you isn't exactly 'coming around.'" He gave me a long, level look. "There was a lot more than kissing, Miss 'I'm a Qui...
Exactly. That's what's been happening here for the past ten thousand years: You've been doing what you damn well please with the world. And of course you mean to go right on doing what you damn well please with it, because the whole damn thing belong...
Sam was your brother, and Trick was your friend, but what they did had nothing to do with you. You don't have to choose. Just because me and your dad couldn't live together, didn't mean you had to stop loving one of us, did it? Doesn't work like that...
When I returned to partial life my face was wet with tears. How long that state of insensibility had lasted I cannot say. I had no means now of taking account of time. Never was solitude equal to this, never had any living being been so utterly forsa...
Detachment, properly understood, means freedom, inner freedom. And, although it is not a word Jesus used, detachment expresses very well an important element in his spirituality: the ability to let go. In the Christian tradition this has been spoken ...
...the Northern Rockies region is a rapidly changing part of the United States. Ironically, in many areas today's number-one threat is not clear-cutting, overgrazing, or destructive mining practices. It is something more insidious. Well-meaning peopl...
Allow yourself to think that the possibility of failure is a necessary part of parenting well.... Avoiding the possibility of failure means avoiding the possibility of being an extraordinary parent-and avoiding what you want for your child.
Repentance means turning from as much as you know of your sin to give as much as you know of yourself to as much as you know of your God, and as our knowledge grows at these three points so our practice of repentance has to be enlarged.
One of the biggest contradictions in self-proclaimed open-mindedness is to say that we're all one but when a true bigot comes around tell him we're all different. It's usually the case that neither side is correct. One might have the right to do some...
Dare we care at all about current fashions if that means reducing our ability to help hungry neighbors? How many more luxuries should we buy for ourselves and our children when others are dying for lack of bread?
He seemed to be staring at the chain hanging from the ceiling fan. Seconds later, he confirmed this by reaching out and tugging the chain. Light clicked on. He tugged the chain again. Light went off. Oh for gods' sake, he had a mean case of ADD somet...
