The next night, alone in the tent, Laurent said: 'As we draw closer to the border, I think it would be safer--more private--to hold our discussions in your language rather than mine.' He said it in carefully pronounced Akielon. Damen stared at him, f...
Part of the problem was that I couldn't seem to get past the fact that I hadn't tried to escape from Kas. Even in France, when he'd left me on my own for several days, I'd carried on working [as a prostitute] and doing all the things he'd told me to ...
Although there are things that can be done to enhance corporate worship, there is a profound sense in which excellent worship cannot be attained merely by pursuing excellent worship. In the same way that, according to Jesus, you cannot find yourself ...
Pure truth," I said. "You are my bright penny by the roadside. You are worth more than salt or the moon on a long night of walking. You are sweet wine in my mouth, a song in my throat, and laughter in my heart. [...] "You are too good for me," I said...
Her eyes, always sad, now looked into the mirror with particular hopelessness. "She's flattering me," thought the princess, and she turned away and went on reading. Julie, however, was not flattering her friend: indeed, the princess's eyes, large, de...
Poverty is a great educator. Having no boundaries and refusing to be ignored, it mostly teaches hopelessness. But not always. Politics is also a great educator. Mostly it teaches, I am afraid, cynicism. But not always. Television is a great educator ...
This obsession is a curious thing. Sometimes wonder about the merits of devoting so much of myself to a singular climbing objective. Much of the time it beats me down, leaves me hanging my head in despair. But then there are the moments that bring me...
Despite the real danger of malaria, a wide swath of people of every age and education level and nationality all around the world imagine mosquito nets to be ‘confining' and 'suffocating;’ most others refuse to use them because they ‘don’t loo...
I had always liked staying the night with other families, having your own room with a freshly made bed, full of unfamiliar objects, with a towel and a washcloth nicely laid out, and from there straight into the heart of family life, despite there alw...
Despite all the challenges facing higher education in America, from mounting student debt to grade inflation and erratic standards, our system is rightly the world's envy, and not just because our most revered universities remain on the cutting edge ...
With drug use related harms, explanatory models are often presented as predictive tools, even though they ‘are [rarely if ever] predictive of consequent behavior’ or outcomes. Hence, we feel confident in asserting at outset, that prohibition base...
I've never been more hopeful about our future. I have never been more hopeful about America. And I ask you to sustain that hope. I'm not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblock...
Approaching the Start of Civil Exams Perhaps I was once a young Chinese scholar approaching the start of civil exams, my mind grown weary and sad from seclusion with books on syntax and poetic style. All that I knew were the mist-covered mountains an...
Georg Dreyman: You are a great artist. I know that, and your audience knows it, too. You don't need him. You don't need him. Stay here. Don't go to him. Christa-Maria Sieland: No? I don't need him? Don't I need this whole system? What about you? Then...
[last lines] Narrator: The Red Sash Cowboy Gang was broken forever. Ike Clanton was shot and killed two years later during an attempted robbery. Mattie died of a drug overdose shortly after she left Tombstone. Virgil and Allie Earp moved to Californi...
And it was to this city, whenever I went home, that I always knew I must return, for it was mistress of one's wildest hopes, protector of one's deepest privacies. It was half insane with its noise, violence, and decay, but it gave one the tender secu...
Patriotism Breathes there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, 'This is my own, my native land!' Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd As home his footsteps he hath turn'd From wandering on a foreign strand? If such there bre...
I'm not a Wiccan. I'm not big on churches of any kind, despite the fact that I've spoken, face-to-face, with an archangel of the Almighty. But there were some things I believed in. Some things I had faith in. And faith isn't about perfect attendance ...
When anything in life is an absolute requirement for your happiness and self-worth, it is essentially an ‘idol,’ something you are actually worshiping. When such a thing is threatened, your anger is absolute. Your anger is actually the way the id...
Despite the sale of millions of copies of "How to.." books and programmes each year, very few people take actions and put what they learn into practice. Here´s why. The "how to..." book has usually been written by someone who accomplished something ...
I have been here before, But when or how I cannot tell: I know the grass beyond the door, The sweet keen smell, The sighing sound, the lights around the shore. You have been mine before,— How long ago I may not know: But just when at that swallow's...
