The mistake you make, don't you see,is in thinking one can live in a corrupt society without being corrupt oneself. After all, what do you achieve by refusing to make money? You're trying to behave as though one could stand right outside our economic...
Guidance, like all God's acts of blessing under the covenant of grace, is a sovereign act. Not merely does God will to guide us in the sense of showing us his way, that we may tread it; he wills also to guide us in the more fundamental sense of ensur...
When you write, it’s like braiding your hair. Taking a handful of coarse unruly strands and attempting to bring them unity. Your fingers have still not perfected the task. Some of the braids are long, others are short. Some are thick, others are th...
The Christian does not avoid sin to achieve salvation, but rather salvation brings him to a desire not to sin. The closer that one's spirit is synchronized with the holy knowledge of God, the more he comprehends how and why sin is destructive to hims...
Maybe she should cut the guy a little slack, [...] Maybe Thorne had been a no-show because something bad happened to him on the job. What if he'd been injured in the line of duty and didn't come by as promised because he was incapacitated in some way...
Our sexual fantasies are often redundant and intense, like many other ideas involving ourselves. Most people approach sexuality limited to the idea that they should imitate other people, art (e.g., romantic literature) or movies (e.g., pornography). ...
With an ashamed sigh, I confessed, “You have seen nothing but the worst of me since then, Aeron. I’ve been a bitter, defiant, irrational shrew…and now I’m selfishly dragging you into a hopeless situation against your better judgment. What wou...
Copies have been dethroned; the economic model built on them is collapsing. In a regime of superabundant free copies, copies are no longer the basis of wealth. Now relationships, links, connections, and sharing are. Value has shifted away from a copy...
Gran runs her fingers through my hair, smiling down at me. I'm to weak to reach up and trace her laugh lines, but I trace them with my eyes, thinking of all the years that have gone by between Lucy and I with Gran. All of the memories held in those l...
We have flattered ourselves by inventing proverbs of comparison in matter of blindness,--"blind as a bat," for instance. It would be safe to say that there cannot be found in the animal kingdom a bat, or any other creature, so blind in its own range ...
As we continued to talk, going through the motions of getting to know each other, I realized that we already did know each other, as well as any two people could. We’d known each other for years, in the most intimate way possible. We’d connected ...
There are no commitments, only bargains. And they have to be made again every day. You think making a commitment is it. Finish. You think it sets like a concrete platform and it'll take any strain you want to put on it. You're committed. You don't ha...
You see? I don’t know what ‘mature’ means, either, and you could talk all night and I still wouldn’t know. It’s all just words to me, Frank. I watch you talking and I think: Isn’t that amazing? He really does think that way; these words r...
Mal was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, “I’m not sure who my first kill was. We were hunting the stag when we ran into a Fjerdan patrol on the northern border. I don’t think the fight lasted more than a few minutes, but I killed three me...
Our hopes of avoiding the fate which threatens must...[be to make]adjustments that will be needed if we are to recover and surpass our former standards...and only if every one of us is ready to individually obey the necessities of readjustment shall ...
[America]'s higher education system is excellent, both in terms of quality and accessibility. Here anybody can go to college. Many countries simply can't accommodate many students. And by the way, most people who came here in the seventies came to ge...
Reading Chekhov, I felt not happy, exactly, but as close to happiness as I knew I was likely to come. And it occurred to me that this was the pleasure and mystery of reading, as well as the answer to those who say that books will disappear. For now, ...
He hated the blue platter his mother served from, and the salt and pepper shakers, which were glass with red tops, and he hated the silverware designed in flowers, some pieces scratched almost beyond recognition. He even hated the round table and the...
Rarely do we realize that we are in the midst of the extraordinary. Miracles occur all around us, signs from God show us the way, angels plead to be heard, but we pay little attention to them because we have been taught that we must follow certain fo...
The day drags along, you make thousands of plans, you imagine every possible conversation, you promise to change your behavior in certain ways–and you feel more and more anxious until your loved one arrives. But by then, you don't know what to say....
You shouldn't have asked," I said. "Love doesn't ask many questions, because if we stop to think we become fearful. It's an inexplicable fear; it's difficult even to describe it. Maybe it's the fear of being scorned, of not being accepted, or of brea...
