Whatever our official pieties, deep down we all believe in lives. The sternest formalists are the loudest gossips, and if you ask a cultural-studies maven who believes in nothing but collective forces and class determinisms how she came to believe in...
I suppose...my experience with organized faith of any stripe is somewhat stilted," Baisyl admitted. 'As far as my eyes have seen, it's a conglomeration of power-hungry men who self-appoint themselves the sole dictators of how others should live their...
We don't have any intention whatsoever to use military force to solve the Palestinian problem. But when it comes to terror - when it comes to terror, I believe that military - the right military steps is a very, very complicated kind of warfare, wher...
Of all the writers I have read, Vladimir Nabokov has made the biggest impression on me because he, despite living through the 1917 February Revolution, forced exile amidst the anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany, the two World Wars and quite a lot of contr...
When the FDA forces an old drug off the market, patients have very little say in the matter. Patients have even less of a say when the FDA chooses not to approve a new drug. Instead, we are supposed to rely on the FDA's judgment and be grateful. But ...
Designing a station with artificial gravity would undoubtedly be a daunting task. Space agencies would have to re-examine many reliable technologies under the light of the new forces these tools would have to endure. Space flight would have to take s...
In the future, we should anticipate seeing more hybrid wars where conventional warfare, irregular warfare, asymmetric warfare, and information warfare all blend together, creating a very complex and challenging situation to the combatants; therefore ...
I'm supposed to a man who never blows his composure A boy trapped in a war, forced to be a solider The weight of the world just put on top of my shoulders But if there's one thing I know for sure It's that my mind has had its exposure And my emotiona...
Unfortunately, religion often works to shrink and tame the very wild and mysterious forces that first drew our wonder. In the process of making the inexplicable safe for the masses, the possibilities for real illusion-piercing insight becomes reduced...
There is no need to become unique. We already are unique. There is no need to become equal. We already are equal. The greatest tragedies of humankind have come from people trying to force sameness on the level we are different, and trying to become d...
All, or the greatest part of men that have aspired to riches or power, have attained thereunto either by force or fraud, and what they have by craft or cruelty gained, to cover the foulness of their fact, they call purchase, as a name more honest. Ho...
You can always spot a 'television personality', even when they aren't actually on television, because they carry their 'made-up' persona in front of them, like some sort of baffler, or Ready Brek force field. Their reach for notoriety predicated on t...
No one forces me, or any other writer, to sell a film option on the books. If you don't want to run the risk that the filmmakers may adapt your work in a way you don't like, then you don't sell the option. You know when you sell it that they will hav...
In the four decades after World War II, manufacturing jobs paid more than other jobs for given skills. But that is much less true today. Increased international competition has forced American manufacturers to reduce costs. As a result, the pay premi...
Let's be clear: Neither Secretary Powell or I opposed the notion of removing Saddam Hussein by force, but we wanted to avoid the war if we could. But if we couldn't, the notion of removing Saddam Hussein from the scene seemed eminently sensible, give...
In college, educated women (I found out) were frigid; active women (I knew) were neurotic; women (we all knew) were timid, incapable, dependent, nurturing, passive, intuitive, emotional, unintelligent, obedient, and beautiful. You can always get dres...
So, you take no prisoners, huh?’ Flynn leaned in close. Her pulse clicked up a gear at the deliberate invasion of her personal space. ‘No, sweetie. We take prisoners, of the short, female variety. We just don’t fight fair when we catch ‘em.
I know precisely what honor is, Heracles. Honor is the artifice kings sell the peasants’ sons so that they may fight and die without pay. Honor is what drives a peaceful man to bloody vengeance. Honor is what drove the Celts to behead the children ...
Fight vigorously against the wolves, but on behalf of the sheep, not against the sheep. And this you may do by inveighing against the laws and lawgivers, and yet at the same time observing these laws with the weak, lest they be offended, until they s...
Every day of my life it feels as if I'm fighting my way up an escalator that only goes down. And no matter how fast or how hard I run to try to reach the top, I stay in the same place, sprinting, getting nowhere.
We must come to the inevitable conclusion that the guerrilla is a social reformer, who takes up arms responding to the angry protests of the people against their oppressors, and who fights to change the social system that keeps all his unarmed brothe...
