The Bible's "it's better to give than receive" was not the raving of a lunatic. It goes back to a recurring theme that I've found in almost all my experiments: behaviour shapes your thoughts. My brain sees me giving a gift to Julie. My brain conclude...
. . .the most important philosophical question we can each ask ourselves is, ‘Do I or do I not wish to commit suicide?’ If we say, ‘No I do not,’ as most of us would, it is because we have reasons for living, or at the very least real hope th...
My memories are not books. They are only stories that I have been over so many times in my head that I don't know from one day to the next what's remembered and what's made up. Like when you memorize a poem, and for one small unimportant part you sup...
Persephone told me that you said it wasn't as good as you expected it. When she kissed you, I mean." Something flickered behind his eyes, but it was gone so fast that I couldn't tell what it was. "No, it was not. I find little joy in showing affectio...
But does it make any sense at all to know that it ends badly for all of us, even the happiest of us, and that we all lose everything that matters in the end-and yet to know as well, despite all this, as cruelly as the game is stacked, that it's possi...
I wish I could leave you certain of the images in my mind, because they are so beautiful that I hate to think they will be extinguished when I am. Well, but again, this life has its own mortal loveliness. And memory is not strictly mortal in its natu...
Today I speak to my bones as I would speak to a dog. I want to go up the stairs, I tell them. Up, up, up, with one leg dragging. Is the ache deep in the bones, this elusive pain? Does that mean it will rain? Good bones, bones, I coax, wondering how t...
In the use of force, one simplifies the situation by assuming that the evil to be overcome is clear-cut, definite, and irreversible. Hence there remains but one thing: to eliminate it. Any dialogue with the sinner, any question of the irreversibility...
I remember that life in that room seemed to be occurring beneath the sea, time flowed past indifferently above us, hours and days had no meaning. In the beginning our life held a joy and amazement which was newborn every day. Beneath the joy, of cour...
Perhaps, as we say in America, I wanted to find myself. This is an interesting phrase, not current as far as I know in the language of any other people, which certainly does not mean what it says but betrays a nagging suspicion that something has bee...
We must do business in great waters; we must be really on the deck in a storm, if we would see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep. We must have stood side by side with King David; we must have gone down into the pit to slay the lion or...
I realize now that the reason we often feel so bad about change is because of all those beautiful things that happen in our lives. I mean, I can't remember ever feeling sad about many things other than a great memory. I believe in contentment and lov...
Let twelve angels come into being to rule over chaos and the underworld." And look, from the cloud there appeared an angel whose face flashed with fire and whose appearance was defiled with blood. His name was Nebro, which means in translation 'rebel...
Whether you believe in God or are an atheist, you cannot deny that the empirical facts of science have nothing to do with whether or not freedom and good are real or worth destroying ourselves for. Meaning must come from the individual in touch with ...
I answered that I was sure, and he asked me again, and this time I understood his concern. ‘I’m not embarrassed!’ I said, or at least tried to say, before recalling that embarazada means something entirely different to ‘embarrassed’ and tha...
Whether they are raised in indigenous or modern culture, there are two things that people crave: the full realization of their innate gifts, and to have these gifts approved, acknowledged, and confirmed. There are countless people in the West whose e...
HAMLET [...] we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table; that's the end. CLAUDIUS Alas, alas. HAMLET A man may fish with the worm tha...
It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream--making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being cap...
. I’ve watched about a dozen tourists almost get hit by cars since I’ve been here. I barely made it to the beach alive the other day. I mean, no one knows what they’re doing. They swing their heads back and forth like they’re mounted on a doo...
It will no longer be necessary to leave one's own home in order to find work in the surrounding districts, which means spending week after week away from home, for no matter how restless a fellow might be, his own home, if he has a wife he respects a...
Well, this is only a story, isn't it? I mean, our patrons, anyone who comes to this park, are they going to take this to heart, Mister Shake?' They'll take what pieces they want, and everything gets a little skewed. That's how these things work, Fred...
