When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life doe...
As he had once said to someone in England, though he did not care to remember whom, he had liked the sight of the sea because it represented his escape from England. And he had escaped. But she had said that perhaps it was from himself he wished to e...
One longs and longs to be grown up, doesn't one?," she said, "I dreamed of being eighteen and having a Season and meeting handsome gentlemen even apart from Dominic and falling in love with them and marrying him and living happily ever after. But lif...
It's a good thing you're an aging orphan," he murmured, gently pushing the hair away from her face. "I don't have to wait around to get anyone's permission." "Permission for what, you rat bastard?" she said. "Such language, dragon. I'm afraid you're ...
[Saint Anthony] said, in his solitude, he sometimes encountered devils who looked like angels, and other times he found angels who looked like devils. When asked how he could tell the difference, the saint said that you can only tell which is which b...
Please tell me you don't go around saying crap like that to everyone. No wonder no one in town ever talks to us. Wealthy families always have a crazy person or two. Is that really the role you want to play, Vi?" "We're not wealthy anymore. Remember? ...
The crow cawed again overhead, and a strong sea wind came in and burst through the trees, making the green pine needles shake themselves all over the place. That sound always gave me goose bumps, the good kind. It was the sound an orphan governess he...
Back at the Chateau Windsor there was a rat-like scratching at the door of my room. Vinod, the youngest servant, came in with a soda water. He placed it next to the bag of toffees. Then he watched me read. I was used to being observed reading. Someti...
Osman and Prideep had been in my employment for some weeks. Every Friday I would take the to lunch. It was the high point of their calender. During the meal I would harangue them as a reminder of what they had been hired for: but my orations never se...
When the Devil goeth about like a roaring lion, he goeth about in a shape by which few but savages and hunters are attracted. But, when he is trimmed, smoothed, and varnished, according to the mode: when he is aweary of vice, and aweary of virtue, us...
Freedom like charity, begins at home. No man is worthy to fight in the cause of freedom unless he has conquered his internal masters. He must learn control and discipline over the disastrous passions that would lead him to folly and ruin. He must con...
Somewhere, the imaginary little shoulder angel and devil were having a conversation on their respective sides, the angel offering a gentle warning that this might not be a good idea, given all the drama, the complications. But the little devil, with ...
The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility...According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all...
A book is a product of a pact with the Devil that inverts the Faustian contract, he'd told Allie. Dr Faustus sacrificed eternity in return for two dozen years of power; the writer agrees to the ruination of his life, and gains (but only if he's lucky...
Idiot - A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot's activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but "pervades and regulates the whole." He has t...
It was your covenant with the devil to exchange your soul for money and fame, so i won't be sorry for your damn f***ing soul, and the devil gat no time to refund what you had already sell, demons don't understand the meaning of sympathy, you should k...
THERE IS A LOVELY LITTLE horror story about the peasant who started through the haunted wood—the wood that was, people said, inhabited by devils who took any mortal who came their way. But the peasant thought, as he walked slowly along: I am a good...
John Milton: There's this beautiful girl just fucked me forty ways from Sunday... we're done, she's walking to the bathroom, she's trying to walk, she turns... she looks... it's me. Not the Trojan army just fucked her. Little ol' me. She has this loo...
John Milton: You sharpen the human appetite to the point where it can split atoms with its desire; you build egos the size of cathedrals; fiber-optically connect the world to every eager impulse; grease even the dullest dreams with these dollar-green...
John Milton: What about you? Your family, you gotta miss 'em. [Mary Ann shakes her head no] John Milton: No? Mary Ann Lomax: I told Kevin the only thing worse than not having a father was having mine. John Milton: I can relate. I can, believe me.
John Milton: Your vanity is justified, Kevin. Your seed, is the key to a new future. Your son is gonna sit at the head of all tables, my boy. He's gonna set this hold thing free. Kevin Lomax: You want a child? John Milton: I want a family. Kevin Loma...
