Words alone can effect great good as well as evil. A few apt words have swept candidates into office, ended as well as started wars, paved the way for peace and carried with them both hope as well as despair. Words alone have ruined lives, but have a...
When we consider that so few generations had passed since the church left off disemboweling innocent men before the eyes of their families, burning old women alive in public squares, and torturing scholars to the point of madness for merely speculati...
Her support was a constant, one of the few good things I could take as a given. And whenever I see a first novel dedicated to a wife (or a husband), I smile and think, There’s someone who knows.” Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believ...
Zoroastrianism? Oh, there’s never been but a few hundred thousand of them at any one time, mostly located in Iran and India, but that’s it. The one true faith. If you’re not a Zoroastrian, I’m afraid you are bound for Hell.” The man looked ...
The liberal state has no view on whether witchcraft is more valuable than all-in wrestling. Like a tactful publican, it has as few opinions as possible. Many liberals suspect passionate convictions are latently authoritarian. But liberalism should su...
Many, if not most, of the difficulties we experience in dealing with government agencies arise from the agencies being part of a fragmented and open political system…The central feature of the American constitutional system—the separation of powe...
This is not to be cocky, but, I go over real well at Comic-Con. I've done quite a few Comic-Cons, and I enjoy the hell out of them. They are so much fun, and so bizarre. I've done the FX Show in Florida, Wizard-World in Chicago, Comic-Con in San Dieg...
After a few brief simple moments, he found her neck, kissing the nape as if it were a peach, grazing her skin barely, causing her to moan out a small tiny little whimper. Before she could take another rbreath, his lips met hers in rapture, and sudden...
Except for a couple of hours in the morning which I passed in the company of a sage I stayed in bed without food only a few mouthfuls of water “you are a fine looking old man” I said to myself in the mirror “and what is more you have the correc...
Watching St John rock his wife's body was not part of my job description. Honest. I sat down on the stairs where I could see the door, the hallway, and the stairs as far as the landing. St John started singing in a strange, broken voice. It took me a...
I revise constantly, as I go along and then again after I've finished a first draft. Few of my novels contain a single sentence that closely resembles the sentence I first set down. I just find that I have to keep zapping and zapping the English lang...
If thou has passion for faith thou dost preach Regard for God whose mercy thou beseech Love for the soil out of which thou art born Why dost thou slay thy brethren, held in scorn? The land on which I was born is not mine That giveth bread and roof is...
He was looking for immensity. His life was hopelessly small, everything surrounding him was nondescript and gray. And death is absolute; it is indivisible and indissoluble. The presence of the girl was pathetic (a few caresses and a lot of meaningles...
Looking back few friends had we but I've got him and he's got me. And when the golden minute comes when we no longer wake to smell the river where the wild swans sailed the orchard where the blossoms fell, we'll smile a little thinkin' of that. Me in...
Having shot down a number, some of which were anly wounded, the whole flock swept repeatedly around their prostrate companions, and again settled on a low tree, within twenty yards of the spot where I stood. At each successive discharge, though showe...
Few female characters get to be “the Chosen One” in science fiction and fantasy. Leia is as much the child of Darth Vader as Luke is, but only Luke gets to use the force, be recruited by his dad and ultimately save the day. We don’t get impossi...
Reputation is what others think of us; character is what God knows of us. When you have spent what feels like eternity trying to repair a few moments of time that destroyed the view others once had of you then you must ask yourself if you have the pr...
What if you wake up one fine morning only to realize that the life you have been living since the last few days was nothing but a dream of yours? Would you go back to sleep then? I wake up each morning only to realize you're not by my side. And if th...
My father never wanted me to be a writer. He didn't - he came to terms with it maybe two years before he died. He wanted me to be a weather girl because when I was growing up, there were very few Latinas on television, and in the early '70s when you ...
I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal. A day when one has not pushed oneself to the limit seems a damaged, damaging day, a sinful day. Not ...
New teachers were just a part of life, for a few days after one arrived, squawks of interest were emitted from various corners, but then they died away as the teacher was absorbed like everyone else...before you knew it, the fresh ones seemed to have...
