In spring, 1937, of course, families still rode the rails because of the Depression, which everyone said was already in the history books as the worst ever. The jobs still couldn’t be found, at least for most people. Everett itself—the smaller, p...
If we are ever going to achieve a rational approach to organizing our affairs, we have to dignify the process of admitting to being wrong. It doesn't help matters at all if the media, or your friends, accuse you of "flip-flopping" when you change you...
Up, up, my soul, the long-spent time redeeming; Sow thou the seeds of better deeds and thought; Light other lamps while yet thy lamp is beaming— The time is short. Think of the good thou might'st have done when brightly The suns to thee life's choi...
The encouraging thing is that every time you meet a situation, though you may think at the time it is an impossibility and you go through the tortures of the damned, once you have met it and lived through it you find that forever after you are freer ...
People seem weak, but they’re strong. They seem strong, but they’re weak. No matter how much you cry, you still have to sleep. And you even get hungry. You suddenly realize you’re doing the same things you did yesterday. You say hi to your frie...
Annwyl didn't know or care. She hated the gods, pretty much all of them. But more than gods, she hated humans who did horrible things while proclaiming themselves holy and righteous because of their gods. Yet of all the holy sycophants she'd had to d...
You've got this life and while you've got it, you'd better kiss like you only have one moment, try to hold someone's hand like you will never get another chance to, look into people's eyes like they're the last you'll ever see, watch someone sleeping...
In his book , written in 1951-2 and published in the West in 1953, the Polish poet and essayist Czeslaw Milosz paid Orwell one of the greatest compliments that one writer has ever bestowed upon another. Milosz had seen the Stalinisation of Eastern Eu...
How your heart can possibly find a way to love and trust a man again proves that I've fallen in love with the bravest woman I've ever known. I know how much courage it took for you to allow me in after what your father did to you. And I swear I will ...
The only people who can ever put ideas into context are people who don't care; the unbiased and apathetic are usually the wisest dudes in the room. If you want to totally misunderstand why something is supposedly important, find the biggest fan of th...
When a man over forty tries to repent of the sins of England and to love her enemies, he is attempting something costly; for he was brought up to certain patriotic sentiments which cannot be mortified without a struggle. But an educated man who is no...
I don't want to sacrifice myself for something. I don't want do DIE for something. I don't even want to walk in the rain up a hill in a skirt that's sticking to my thighs for something. I want to live for something instead- as men do. I want to have ...
So.” She picked up his paperweight and turned it over. “This was your search for a heart?” “No.” His voice was ever so quiet. “I made that when I gave up on having one altogether. I didn’t think there was any point in looking for such a...
Inside me, there is an organ more important than my heart. Although you can't see it, I feel it going right through my head and down to my legs, and I know that it exists inside me. It's the one that lets me stand up and walk forward. So that I can w...
I wanted to project myself forward to age 80 and say, ‘OK, I’m looking back on my life. I want to minimise the number of regrets I have.’ And I knew that when I was 80, I was not going to regret having tried this. I was not going to regret tryi...
Science is a field which grows continuously with ever expanding frontiers. Further, it is truly international in scope. Any particular advance has been preceded by the contributions of those from many lands who have set firm foundations for further d...
The marriage of reason and nightmare that dominated the 20th century has given birth to an ever more ambiguous world. Across the communications landscape move the spectres of sinister technologies and the dreams that money can buy. Thermo-nuclear wea...
It was an amazing garden like nothing Will had ever seen. Everything was covered in snow and glittering ice, the winding paths, the clusters of trees and what looked like mazes. And here and there blue fountains splashed and a river meandered between...
This story ["The Depressed Person"] was the most painful thing I ever wrote. It's about narcissism, which is a part of depression. The character has traits of myself. I really lost friends while writing on that story, I became ugly and unhappy and ju...
Don't creationists ever wonder about the fact that the paleontologists found ape-like skulls with the 'human leg and foot bones,' rather than the other way around, i.e., human skulls with 'ape leg and foot bones?' . . . Come on, creationists, think a...
I love the way she feels in the curve of my arm. I love her unpretentious beauty, her intelligence, her nerve. But could I ever love her? The concept of falling in love is completely foreign, something I can’t bring myself to accept. Her hair pillo...