Losing a belief in free will has not made me fatalistic—in fact, it has increased my feelings of freedom. My hopes, fears, and neuroses seem less personal and indelible. There is no telling how much I might change in the future. Just as one wouldn�...
Yes no yes no yes no? Red blue? Yes red, no blue? No red, yes no? In out, up down? Do don't, can can't? Choices sit on the shelf life New shoes in a shoe shop. If the in crowd are squeezing into a must-have shoe And the one pair left are too tiny for...
The Good Lord Bird don't run in a flock. He Flies alone. You know why? He's searching. Looking for the right tree. And when he sees that tree, that dead tree that's taking all the nutrition and good things from the forest floor. He goes out and he gn...
It doesn't matter if I think like a boy or a girl. It doesn't matter anymore if I'm either or both or neither. All that shit seems so petty and immaterial now. There's so little difference between one human being and the next, it's just hypotheses, h...
Marianne touches his elbow, halting him. 'You know I'll tell you something about being married five times. Or married five times and still friends with my surviving ex-husbands'. She counts them on gnarled fingers. 'That would be three'. He waits. 'I...
As per the Indian philosophy of the Upanishads, the source of evil is one’s ego-sense –Ahankara—which differentiates oneself from the other selves. A person, who visualizes himself independent of others, tries to guard or please himself at the ...
People falling in love for one reason may fall out of love due to another reason. However, if faith or trust is the basis of love, it does not break easily. Often people use all their reasoning to understand each other and even live together for year...
It's funny the things you think will last forever when you're young. I figured I'd work until I died. But even work stops at some point. And you find yourself looking around, taking stock of your life, and you realize that you don't give a shit about...
At twenty years old, Michael had vague plans to make changes in his life, but turning blue whilst stood in a walk-in bath in an old people's home wasn't one of them. Usually boys of his age might consider changes along the lines of smoking less grass...
Here’s what I learned about life when we were going through that. We’re all human and mortal. We’re all going to suffer and die. But it’s how we are with each other during those times that proves God’s here with us.” He turned his hand ov...
Concentrate on sharpening your memory and peeling your sensibility. Cut every page you write by at least one third. Stop constructing those piffling little similes of yours. Work out what it is you want to say. Then say it in the most direct and vigo...
For indeed, grace is the key to it all. It is not our lavish good deeds that procure salvation, but God's lavish love and mercy. That is why the poor are as acceptable before God as the rich. It is the generosity of God, the freeness of his salvation...
Is it really true that the only good thing a Blackman can offer in a relationship with a white woman is thunderous sex? Of course, sex plays a vital healing role in every loving relationship. That is a fact of life. But, as we discover in the story o...
As an inmate of a concentration camp, Corrie Ten Boom heard a commotion, and saw a short distance away a prison guard mercilessly beating a female prisoner. “What can we do for these people?” Corrie whispered. “Show them that love is greater,�...
Paradoxically .. the very feminist movement that gave women more options also helped create pressure on many of us to be strong, successful, and independent—the kind of women who would theoretically be immune to any form of abuse from men. As a res...
What I like about the job of being a novelist, and at the same time what I find so exhausting about it, is that it's the closest thing to being God you're ever going to get. All the decisions are yours. You decide when the sun comes up. You decide wh...
Wishes of one's old life wither and shrivel like old leaves if they are not replaced with new wishes when the world changes. And the world always changes. Wishes get slimy, and their colors fade, and soon they are just mud, like all the rest of the m...
I'm just saying, when a woman in a maiden, she's in the spotlight. Everybody cares what a pretty, young girl does and says. And she's got some pretty strict archetypes to adhere to: Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella or Britney Spears. Pick your poison. B...
Bruce decides to spend the family fortune on capes and crime labs and to fritter away his free time fighting crazy criminals. Now that's an out-of-the-box calling. What sort of person makes a life change like that without radical submission? Without ...
From too much love of living From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be That no life lives for ever; That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea. Then star nor sun shal...
Faith is a quiet certainty that there is both a higher purpose to life and a higher power that oversees that purpose. Faith is knowing that we do not have to go it alone during our darkest hours and, even when we feel utterly victimized and weak, the...
