People rely on intelligence to solve problems, and they are naturally baffled when comprehension proves impotent to effect emotional change. To the neocortical brain, rich in the power of abstractions, understanding makes all the difference, but it d...
I tilted my chin up a fraction. "You can't f-force me to stay here." I'd only agreed to come this far because I didn't want to stand out in the downpour, for one, and I had high hopes of finding a phone, for two. "That sounded more like a question th...
I'm going to make it very hard. I love you and I'm tired of being told what I should want and what I should do. You and I got married and I can stomp my foot and scream and rail at you because of the deal you made with my father, but the truth is I w...
Perhaps the most extraordinary popular delusion about violence of the past quarter-century is that it is caused by low self-esteem. That theory has been endorsed by dozens of prominent experts, has inspired school programs designed to get kids to fee...
I don’t know what it’s like to be a friend any more than you do. I think “hard” when it should be “soft,” or “gentle” when “forceful” is the key. Often it’s giving every last drop of blood, then skinning myself and giving the sk...
When you chose to follow the way of purity, did you expect it to be easy? When you decided to wait for the best, did you think that waiting would be fun? Did you think that your faith would not be tested? When you decided to take the narrow path, did...
So it is with the mind, Nandini. Allow it to be in balance. Avoid extremes: the middle way is better. Neither force the mind too hard into concentration nor let it wander aimlessly. Meditation is to pay attention, to be aware of your breathing, your ...
Stories come alive in the telling. Without a human voice to read them aloud, or a pair of wide eyes following them by flashlight beneath a blanket, they had no existence in our world. They were like seeds in the beak of a bird, waiting to fall to ear...
Ivanov's fear was of a literary nature. That is, it was the fear that afflicts most citizens who, one fine (or dark) day, choose to make the practice of writing, and especially the practice of fiction writing, an integral part of their lives. Fear of...
I don't believe that." She seems like suck a force,this reasonable girl who kills with a turn of her fingers. She would have left all this behind, if she had the chance. "I honestly don't remember," she sighs "I don't think I was strong in life. Now ...
In my own worst seasons I've come back from the colorless world of despair by forcing myself to look hard, for a long time, at a single glorious thing: a flame of red geranium outside my bedroom window. And then another: my daughter in a yellow dress...
I perceive that it is far more practical to begin at the beginning and discuss theories. I see that the men who killed each other about the orthodoxy of the Homoousion were far more sensible than the people who are quarrelling about the Education Act...
The man who had asked my name in Obersalzberg in the summer of 1934 had been a dominant personality excluding a spellbinding charisma to which few were not prey. The embodied sovereign power, total power. The man whom I burnt and interred under a hai...
Grace is waiting for you. It’s always there. It’s always waiting. It doesn’t pokes holes into our lives. We are the ones who poke the holes and let the light in, let the magic in. But there’s no rush. There are no deadlines. There’s comfort...
Over the years, the British had strategically pitted the Muslims against the Hindus, supporting the All India Muslim League and encouraging the notion that the Muslims were a distinct political community. Throughout British India, separate electorate...
Divine justice pursued its course; disasters came thick on me: I was forced to pass through the valley of the shadow of death. His chastisements are mighty; and one smote me which has humbled me for ever. You know I was proud of my strength: but what...
A rumor is a social cancer: it is difficult to contain and it rots the brains of the masses. However, the real danger is that so many people find rumors enjoyable. That part causes the infection. And in such cases when a rumor is only partially made ...
All Renaissance drama, especially the works of Marlowe and Shakespeare, is profoundly concerned with shifting power relations within society. The individual was a new force in relation to the state. The threat of rebellion, of the overturning of esta...
He looked her over with blatant intent, his gaze containing an edge that had her swallowing hard before she could stop herself. "Do you know what I think?" he said at last. "I live to hear such things." He stepped forward, only a handful of steps, bu...
It’s easy to point out someone else’s mistake, harder to recognize your own. Especially because most people—except the lucky few like ourselves—are forced to live with their mistakes. So they learn to justify their mistakes, build on them, un...
We all draw different lines. Sometimes they intersect. Sometimes they don’t. We agree on forms of evil, but judge degrees of it, saying only the worst of humanity is truly bad. And everything along the gray lines is subject to opinion. These are th...
