We have complete choice as individuals: the only decisions we can take are our own. And yet so many species use the state of being an individual as an excuse for inaction, helplessness and irresponsibility.No situation is so overwhelming that action ...
When you are a child you are yourself and you know and see everything prophetically. And then suddenly something happens and you stop being yourself; you become what others force you to be. You lose your wisdom and your soul.
Black Magick is the process of self-transformation through an antinomian initiatory structure, Black meaning the hidden wisdom, power of darkness, dreams and staging the reality you wish and Magick being the process to ascend, become immortal in spir...
Ifemelu would also come to learn that, for Kimberly, the poor were blameless. Poverty was a gleaming thing; she could not conceive of poor people being vicious or nasty because their poverty had canonized them, and the greatest saints were the foreig...
Relaxing your hair is like being in prison. You're caged in. Your hair rules you. You didn't go running with Curt today because you don't want to sweat out this straightness. You're always battling to make your hair do what it wasn't meant to do.
I guess you can be yourself, whatever that means-the best and worst of you. And they love you anyway. You can fight, but even when you're mad at them, you know they're not going to stop being your friend.
It is supposed that power corrupts,' the caterpillar said in a voice as untroubled as time itself. "yet the powerful are often corrupt before they are powerful. In fact, I find that they too often become powerful by being corrupt. Whether real or per...
Why I felt the need to always disobey everyone around me was beyond me. But I guess being sixteen years old made me susceptible to bouts of irrational behaviour and the occasional notion that I was in fact smarter than everyone else, regardless of wh...
Sometimes I'm a black. Not everyone realizes blackness has to be conferred upon you again and again. It's like getting your nails done. Or being pantsed. People assume I'm cool.
By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you, I believe you're there, I believe you into being. Because I'm telling you this story I will your existence. I tell, therefore you are.
I began to get a feeling familiar to me from my bartending days of being the only sane man in a nuthouse. It doesn't make you feel superior but depressed and scared, because there is nobody you can contact.
What about you?” Scarlet asked. “You have to enjoy the fear, too. Just a little?” “Not the fear,” Han said. “I just like being a little smarter than the next guy.” “That’s all it is?” “That, and I really hate paying taxes.
There’s nothing I like more than rewards. Well, other than awards. I also love coffee a lot too. Being rewarded with a coffee award would be the ultimate euphoria for me.
...and from here I realized, with the deepest sense of my being, that we can erect and dismantle the great walls of the world, but we will only truly survive as a species when we dedicate ourselves to removing the walls from within.
It seems that in almost all societies, the attitudes that people have to language change is basically the same. People everywhere tend to say that the older form of a language is in some sense 'better' than the form that is being used today.
When I was young, I spent my days and nights trying to impress future generations. I spent them. They’re gone. All because I was deathly afraid of being forgotten. And then came the regret. The worst things of all worst things.
That’s when I have to ask him. “Can you really talk like that? Being holy and all?” “What? Because I’m a priest?” He finishes the dregs of his coffee. “Sure. God knows what’s important.
The room does feel strange, oppressive even, with the TV off. In fact, Katie can’t remember ever being in this room without it on. It’s as if they’re missing their fifth sibling, the one who never shuts up and demands all the attention.
Of course I wasn't abused. If I were; things would be so simple. I'd have a reason to for being in a shrinks office. I'd have a justification and something to work on. The world wasn't going to give me something that tidy.
The Empire's got something worse than whips all right. It's got obedience. Whips in the soul. They obey anyone who tells them what to do. Freedom just means being told what to do by someone different.
Every creative journey begins with a problem. It starts with a feeling of frustration, the dull ache of not being able to find the answer. We have worked hard, but we've hit the wall. We have no idea what to do next.