Okay, so English settlers brought rabbits with them to Australia to breed for food and stuff, right? But they escaped and basically started destroying the country, eating the vegetation, that kind of thing. So by the early 1900s, the government was t...
I know the difference between peace and war better than any man in my country. Why will you take by force what you may have quietly by love? Why will you destroy us who supply you with food? What can you get by war? Why are you jealous of us? We are ...
We can trace the communitarian fantasy that lies at the root of all humanism back to the model of a literary society, in which participation through reading the canon reveals a common love of inspiring messages. At the heart of humanism so understood...
For me, art in our time is strongest when it is aware of science, includes science, is inspired by science, or is about science. On the linguistic level, the new words coined by scientists to describe their new discoveries form a giant growing lexico...
But I got through the review, for all their Latin and French; I did, and if you doubt me, you just look at the end of the great ledger, turn it upside down, and you'll find I've copied out all the fine words they said of you: "careful observer," "str...
Kate: As you know Robbie's shining moment this year was when he set a school record for cursing in an eighth grade English class. [gets up and writes on blackboard] Kate: Asshole. You're familiar with that word, Mrs Weaver? Emily: Yes, I am and I've ...
Senior Ed Bloom: I don't know if you're aware of this, Josephine, but African parrots, in their native home of the Congo, they speak only French. Josephine: Really? Senior Ed Bloom: You're lucky to get four words out of them in English, but if you we...
Then the woman in the bed sat up and looked about her with wild eyes; and the oldest of the old men said: 'Lady, we have come to write down the names of the immortals,’ and at his words a look of great joy came into her face. Presently she, began t...
I had begun to see a new map of the world, one that was frightening in its simplicity, suffocating in its implications. We were always playing on the white man's court, Ray had told me, by the white man's rules. If the principal, or the coach, or a t...
There was a time I stopped talking, just like you. My reasons were a little bit different, but... I think the feelings of being ashamed of myself and hating myself... are the same. Here it says "to like yourself." What does that mean? Good things---h...
The other thing that’s happened with writing is that I’m not afraid it will go away. Up until a couple of years ago, I feared that sitting down with paper and pencil revealed too much desire and that for such ambition I would be punished. My voca...
Fifth grade was fourth grade with something wrong. Nothing changed outright. Instead it teetered. You'd pushed futility at Public School 38 so long by then you expected the building itself would be embarrassed and quit. The ones who couldn't read sti...
My unlucky star had destined me to be born when there was much talk about morality and, at the same time, more murders than in any other period. There is, undoubtedly, some connection between these phenomena. I sometime ask myself whether the connect...
Do you know that when one who has influence with youth- be he teacher, leader or parent- seriously weakens the foundations upon which a young person has built, by faith-destroying challenges the youngster is not yet equipped to meet, he fashions a di...
Jesus’s use of the phrasing “a new commandment” is frequently scanted in light of its implicit ramifications. Because Jesus at the Last Supper has executed the “new covenant” with his disciples, the Great Commandment itself now acquires an ...
Have you ever seen anything quite as pathetic?" said Malfoy. "And he’s supposed to be our teacher!" Harry and Ron both made furious moves toward Malfoy, but Hermione got there first - SMACK! She had slapped Malfoy across the face with all the stren...
The themes of Jesus' teaching are important, but of course he was more than a teacher. All the Gospels put the end of his life at the dramatic center of his story. Here all the hopes of Israel come together—he is the king of the Jews, the greatest ...
God’s love for us is everlasting. That means that God’s love for us existed before we were born and will exist after we have died. It is an eternal love in which we are embraced. Living a spiritual life calls us to claim that eternal love for our...
Easily he had turned studying my least favorite subject in history into my now most memorable one. Then there was his want to make our relationship more real than superficial, something very new to me. Though I was one relationship more knowledgeable...
I was terrified of death by the time I was three or four, actively if not lucidly. I had frequent nightmares about snakes and scary neighbors. By the age of four or five, I was terrified by my thoughts. By the time I was five, the migraines began. I ...
As adults we choose our own reading material. Depending on our moods and needs we might read the newspaper, a blockbuster novel, an academic article, a women's magazine, a comic, a children's book, or the latest book that just about everyone is readi...