Writing is a habit, an addiction, as powerful and overmastering an urge as putting a bottle to your lips or a spike in your arm. Call it the impulse to make something out of nothing, call it an obsessive-compulsive disorder, call it logorrhea. Have y...
History pays no heed to the unspectacular citizen who worked hard all day and walked at night to a humble home with dust on his tunic and his flat cap. But in the end the builders have had the better of it. The miracles they accomplished in stone are...
Detective Inspector Eccles sighed. He may ordinarily have met his sigh with the question of why the newly appointed Superintendent Dickinson was turning up to this late hour crime scene, he may also ordinarily question why his superior officer was dr...
...Tea. There is nothing saner than tea, he thought. ... Tea was the great leveler. It brought calm, quiet, contentment, warmth. And it was something to do. .....Tea-- so normal, so mundane, so hot... ...The heat and scent of it permeated his head an...
Too many companies— and individuals— are befuddled by delusion when it comes to identifying their authentic strengths and projecting those strengths through their brand. It’s as if they live in Opposite Land. If their service is wretched, they ...
Throughout human history, as our species has faced the frightening, terrorizing fact that we do not know who we are, or where we are going in this ocean of chaos, it has been the authorities, the political, the religious, the educational authorities ...
I have my own way to walk and for some reason or other Zen is right in the middle of it wherever I go. So there it is, with all its beautiful purposelessness, and it has become very familiar to me though I do not know "what it is." Or even if it is a...
I do so much writing. But so much of it never goes anywhere, never sees any light of day. I suppose that's like gardening in the basement. I don't publish so much of what I write. I just seem to plow it back into the soil of what I write after it, re...
The denier that ID [intelligent design] is science faces the following dilemma. Either he admits that the intervention of such a designer is possible, or he does not. If he does not, he must explain why that belief is more scientific than the belief ...
I think it simply comes down to fantasy being the language I speak. While I cannot get into epic sword and sorcery, I see the world as having the potential to be slightly off-kilter. I have run into people who do not quite seem human – though of co...
I always say that anybody who’s single ― like Sara ― their love is the most intense love. The heartbreak they’re enduring is the most intense heartbreak. We cannot understand what Sara’s going through. When it’s love, it’s my love, you ...
The world is full of lots of people play acting and hurling stuff about, unconscious of the effects. And there are large group karmic things going on through history that none of us should ever take personally. Rushing about trying to rectify the sin...
What should I do about the wild and the tame? The wild heart that wants to be free, and the tame heart that wants to come home. I want to be held. I don't want you to come too close. I want you to scoop me up and bring me home at nights. I don't want...
I'm no longer a child and I still want to be, to live with the pirates. Because I want to live forever in wonder. The difference between me as a child and me as an adult is this and only this: when I was a child, I longed to travel into, to live in w...
People get themselves all steamed up about weather they're in love or not. They ought to realize that the love part is perfectly easy; the hard part is working out, not about love, but about what they're going to do. The difference is that they can g...
Sometimes, life gets overwhelming. You feel pestered, overworked and unappreciated. Your vision becomes blurred and your dreams suddenly feel too far from reach. You feel wasted, even though you know you’ve come a long way. At that point, ALL YOU N...
You've honey on your tongue, ma fifille," Maman once said. "If you'd lived in earlier times, you could have been a troubadour." "...There aren't any troubadours any more, are there, Maman?" Marie said. "And if there were, girls wouldn't be allowed to...
To whomever is writing this book, what do you want from me? I need to know my calling. Why was I chosen? Why not Lee? Why not Susan March? Why me? What is my purpose? Please let it be more than to destroy a life and embarrass another. I need to know....
Beautiful publishers say beautiful things and then We're sorry, but no... and then more beautiful things. It's a shit sandwich with branston pickle and melted gouda. I read it out loud to the kids. I stick it to the fridge with the others. Some write...
I wish kids at school would quit calling me a porno dork-face, though. There wasn't any sex involved! I got knocked out, I panicked and called the cops. Okay, somewhere along the line everybody's clothes fell off, but that's not exactly a federal cri...
At some point in your life, the unexpected happens. People, who once trusted you, will doubt you. People, who once loved you, will hate you. People, who once felt you, will judge you. People, who once stood next to you, will not be there for you. Peo...
