In breaking away from the familiar and the expected, you'll be forced and privileged to face greater challenges, learn harder lessons, and really get to know yourself.
I write about adversity, I praise adversity, not to be pessimistic, but rather to strengthen myself. The more familiar that you are with it, the less likely you are to have a breakdown when it occurs. You become more reflective of its purpose, you un...
A man of God has many brothers. He is a wounded soldier - he is familiar with the pain one feels in his heart, as a close and loving brother, when a brother falls victim of evil men or turns to evil desires (the latter sometimes even betrayal). Becau...
Cope? Adapt? Uh, no. These are military kids. They roll with it. I once asked a new student, 'See any familiar faces?' She pointed out various kids and replied, 'Seattle, Tampa, Okinawa, New Jersey.' For military dependents school is literally a non-...
Orgasm isn’t a goal. It’s the attitude that matters. Abir has never even asked how I feel after sex. He has many other concerns. He provides for me and I provide for him, that’s a familiarity which no one can deny. We love each other. Love is a...
There open up, deep inside a city, reflected streets, streets which are double, make-believe streets. One's imagination, bewitched and misled, creates illusory maps of the apparently familiar districts, maps in which the streets have their proper pla...
What did I fear, and why? — I, to whom the night had been a more familiar face than that of man — I, in whom that element of hereditary superstition from which none of us is altogether free had given to solitude and darkness and silence only a mo...
Anyone who watches even the slightest amount of TV is familiar with the scene: An agent knocks on the door of some seemingly ordinary home or office. The door opens, and the person holding the knob is asked to identify himself. The agent then says, "...
Oh man sometimes I wake up feel like a cat runover. Are you familiar with the stoical aspects of hard drinking, of heavy drinking? Oh it's heavy. Oh it's hard. It isn't easy. Jesus, I never meant me any harm. All I wanted was a good time.
You know on crime shows where they put a sample in a machine, push a button, and it magics them up a description of what it is?” “Ahh yes. I’m familiar” “Like that, but with less magic” Amy squinted, blinked, and shook her head at the scr...
What a familiarity with the construction of Turing test bots had begun to show me was that we fail - again and again- to actually be human with other humans, so maddeningly much of the time.
When I mentioned the notion of “playing hard to get,” it wasn’t intended as encouragement. Ignoring me will not change how I feel about you. It’s a familiar enough situation, after all. You pass by – I hope you’ll notice me watching – y...
It's at moments like these in a game that the essentials of his character are exposed: narrow, ineffectual, stupid—and morally so. The game becomes an extended metaphor of character defect. Every error he makes is so profoundly, so irritatingly typ...
If she could explore and heal his injuries with her fingers, it would be another type of magic, her skin making contact with his. Putting her mind to it, Love would become familiar with his body. She would know him from top to bottom, from beginning ...
Everyone has a right to love the land that gave them the things they need to live. It gives them beauty to look at, and food to eat, and neighbors to bicker with and then eventually to marry. But I think... that your own devotion to your familiar hom...
By prolonged and continued fellowship, the sheep who follow nearby enjoy the shepherd's presence and become his familiar companions. To those closest to him, he shares the choicest portions of the food he's gathered. These happy and content sheep are...
Turn on the faucet. Wash yourself with the emotion. It won’t hurt you. It will only help. If you let the fear inside, if you pull it on like a familiar shirt, then you can say to yourself, “All right, it’s just fear, I don’t have to let it co...
You know, we can quote the written Word all day to our friends, but nothing will touch them like our own hunger and love for the Word himself. It is not dutiful love that attracts but love freely lavished from a heart familiar with the gardens of hea...
I don’t think I would be very good at killing,” Merla said. “To be honest, nor do I. But you may have to.” A disturbing thought came to Merla. “Faye,” she asked, “have you killed a person?” There was a moment’s silence. “Let’s j...
The central question of any execution: do you want the hood on or off? Would you rather see it coming? Or would you rather simply drift away, cocooned in warm darkness, stinking of nothing but yourself? A kind, familiar place to hide in, just before ...
In the beginning, there was physics. "Physics" describes how matter, energy, space, and time behave and interact with one another. The interplay of these characters in our cosmic drama underlies all biological and chemical phenomena. Hence everything...
