I am an explorer,' she whispered, 'setting courageously off into the wild unknown.' It was not a daydream she'd ever had before, but she felt the familiar comfort of her imagination wrapping around her. She was an archeologist, a scientist, a treasur...
[W]e conceive the Devil as a necessary part of a respectable view of cosmology. Ours is a divided empire in which certain ideas and emotions and actions are of God, and their opposites are of Lucifer. It is as impossible for most men to conceive of a...
Tell me, Eric,” he said, licking a droplet from the corner of his mouth. “Have you ever tasted blood?” My mouth was so dry I could barely find the voice to answer him. “What an odd question...” “But a valid one...
Jordan leaned on the counter. He felt a little like a bartender in a TV show, dispensing sage advice. "What do you owe her?" "Life," Isabelle said. Jordan blinked. This was a little beyond his bartending and advice-offering skills. "She saved your li...
I am willing to admit that Gerard Butler has single-handedly murdered the romantic comedy.” Gigi snickered. “Gerard Butler took the romantic comedy to an orgy, accidentally strangled it during an air game, panicked, and dumped its body in the woo...
Korea is often called the “Land of the Morning Calm.” It’s a country where you notice the filth and the smog on your first trip and you can’t imagine why you ever thought it was a good idea to visit. Then you meet the people and you walk amon...
I have only to contemplate myself; man comes from nothing, passes through time, and disappears forever in the bosom of God. He is seen but for a moment wandering on the verge of two abysses, and then is lost. If man were wholly ignorant of himself he...
He tries to get close to her because he wants to know what her glow feels like. She’s alone on the dance floor and even though she’s dancing, there’s a kind of sadness lurking about her, like her heart is somewhere else. Roman doesn’t think h...
Aye lass,” nodded Gizurr, “you are quite the beauty for sure. I’d certainly offer to buy you a beer or two if I ever met you in a pub and that’s a fact.” Ragni tutted and elbowed Gizurr in the ribs, “Have some respect, she looks young eno...
I am not shy about admitting my modest talents. For example, I am happy to admit that I am better than average at clever remarks, and I also have a flair for getting people to like me. But to be perfectly fair to myself, I am ever-ready to confess my...
... in spite of being happier than I ever dreamed I could be, I'm also soberer. The fear that something may happen to you rests like a shadow on my heart. Always before I could be frivolous and carefree and unconcerned, because I had nothing precious...
I couldn’t think of anyone I’d ever felt sorry for. There were plenty of kids I was envious of. There were others I achingly admired, but that might simply be another form of jealousy. Then there were those I feared, dreaded. And the worst of the...
I like the relaxed way in which the Japanese approach religion. I think of myself as basically a moral person, but I'm definitely not religious, and I'm very tired of the preachiness and obsession with other people's behavior characteristic of many r...
Don’t be so hard on yourself, You’re doing the same thing, trying to reconcile all the moms that Mom ever was - The one you wanted, the one she was when you needed her and she was there, the one she was when she didn’t understand. Most of us do...
It must be murder to be an aging beauty, a former Tadzio, to see your future as an ignored spectator rushing up to meet you like the hard pavement. What a small sip of gall to be able to time with each passing year the ever-shorter interval in which ...
Please don't entertain for a moment the utterly mistaken idea that there is no drudgery in writing. There is a great deal of drudgery in even the most inspired, the most noble, the most distinguished writing. Read what the great ones have said about ...
Do you think they have ice cream here?” Lanie asked. Kyle cocked his eyebrow, obviously surprised by her question. “I have no idea. Why do you ask?” “Because I like ice cream when I’m stressed,” she replied, thinking she wasn’t just str...
And then there is that day when all around, all around you hear the dropping of the apples, one by one, from the trees. At first it is one here and one there, and then it is three and then it is four and then nine and twenty, until the apples plumme...
The humble, simple souls, who are little enough to see the bigness of God in the littleness of a Babe, are therefore the only ones who will ever understand the reason of His visitation. He came to this poor earth of ours to carry on an exchange; to s...
The point is: have you ever noticed how we crush a cockroach without further worry and feel no remorse in spite of being in fact terminating a life? That's it. We do so because we don't identify ourselves with a cockroach. Because it's very diffent f...
Nobody can imagine how nothing could turn into something. Nobody can get an inch nearer to it by explaining how something could turn into something else. It is really far more logical to start by saying ‘In the beginning God created heaven and eart...
