[the 54th has just been attached to Col. Montgomery's regiment in the hope of seeing combat. The troops are marching through the regiment's camp] Cpl. Thomas Searles: Who are these ragamuffins? John Rawlins: Contraband soldiers, straight from the fie...
[at a seminar, Charlie Kaufman has asked McKee for advice on his new screenplay in which 'nothing much happens'] Robert McKee: Nothing happens in the world? Are you out of your fucking mind? People are murdered every day. There's genocide, war, corru...
Wilma Cameron: Tell me the truth, Homer. Do you want me to forget about you? Homer Parrish: I want you to be free, Wilma, to live your own life. I don't want you tied down forever just because you've got a kind heart. Wilma Cameron: Oh, Homer! Why ca...
My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you. But for every real word spoken, for every attempt I had ever made to speak those truths for which I am still seeking, I had made contact with other women while we examined the words...
The pale pink light of dawn sparkled on branch and leaf and stone. Every blade of grass was carved from emerald, every drip of water turned to diamond. Flowers and mushrooms alike wore coats of glass. Even the mud puddles had a bright brown sheen. Th...
God forbid that I should boast of being poor, gentle, and meek. But I am striving to attain these virtues. Every day the exercises, and indeed the whole ascetic discipline of my Yoga, make it easier for the grace of Christ to flow in me. I feel my hu...
Amongst democratic nations men easily attain a certain equality of conditions: they can never attain the equality they desire. It perpetually retires from before them, yet without hiding itself from their sight, and in retiring draws them on. At ever...
As much as possible, it is useful to think of all other beings as being just like me. Every living being strives for happiness. Every being wants to avoid all forms of suffering. They are not just objects or things to be used for our benefit. You kno...
If we never experience the chill of a dark winter, it is very unlikely that we will ever cherish the warmth of a bright summer’s day. Nothing stimulates our appetite for the simple joys of life more than the starvation caused by sadness or desperat...
In my world, people are plotting. You have no idea of all the people in business commit every day. Like it was nothing. Or there’s a set of special rules for them. Remember when Bush made that whole speech about ‘corporate ethics’ last year? Wh...
As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value to you than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for you...
Will God ever ask you to do something you are not able to do? The answer is yes--all the time! It must be that way, for God's glory and kingdom. If we function according to our ability alone, we get the glory; if we function according to the power of...
We gallop through our lives like circus performers balancing on two speeding side-by-side horses--one foot is on the horse called "fate," the other on the horse called "free will." And the question you have to ask every day is--which horse is which? ...
I’m scared of him. I’m disgusted by the vile monster he becomes, this beast he lets out. But I still love him. I’d still do anything for him. I can’t just turn off my heart. I want to, I do, but I can’t. I love him with everything I have an...
Everyone will be forgotten, nothing we do will make any difference, and all good endeavours, even the best, will come to naught. Unless there is God. If the God of the Bible exists, and there is a True Reality beneath and behind this one, and this li...
All the queens of my acquaintance have children, some three, some seven, and some as many as twelve; and my queen has not one. I feel ill-used." So he made up his mind to be cross with his wife about it. But she bore it all like a good patient queen ...
Every day we make our way through a moral forest, along pathways ever branching. Often we get lost. When the array of paths before us is so perplexing that we can't make a choice, or won't, we can hope that we will be given a sign to guide us. A reli...
For a while the hobbits continued to talk and think of the past journey and of the perils that lay ahead; but such was the virtue of the land of Rivendell that soon all fear and anxiety was lifted from their minds. The future, good or ill, was not fo...
Everything he had ever done that had been better left undone. Every lie he had told — told to himself, or told to others. Every little hurt, and all the great hurts. Each one was pulled out of him, detail by detail, inch by inch. The demon stripped...
Do you really mean to tell me the only reason you try to be good is to gain God's approval and reward, or to avoid his disapproval and punishment? That's not morality, that's just sucking up, apple-polishing, looking over your shoulder at the great s...
When Dad was in the middle of a description of the hotel’s laundry facility, I interrupted. “Why haven’t you told me today, like you do every day, that Mom’s going to be better soon?” He looked up then. His gaze locked with mine and held a ...
