Pain is never ennobling, only degrading. And do not be afraid, sir, that there will ever be too little of it in the world to spare mankind its "purification". There will always be human groans enough to fill the sails of argument. But I am a practica...
Filled with existential ennui about your place in the universe? Get over yourself. Yes, you're an inconsequential worm in the grand scope of history. But you're an inconsequential worm who makes shit up for a living, which means that you don't have t...
And with a practice of writing comes a certain important integrity. A culture filled with bloggers thinks differently about politics or public affairs, if only because more have been forced through the discipline of showing in writing why A leads to ...
I think people give up, because it's the easy option, but my goodness; why would giving up be easy? Your living your life chasing anything to fill the void of what came about when you let go of everything that mattered? I'd rather fight like mad, for...
I am part of a light, and it is the music. The Light fills my six senses: I see it, hear, feel, smell, touch and think. Thinking of it means my sixth sense. Particles of Light are written note. O bolt of lightning can be an entire sonata. A thousand ...
If I was lonely, if I was afraid of being alone, then why abandon myself? Why run to someone else looking to give myself the thing that only I could give? I wanted to escape myself because I felt empty, and the emptiness frightened me. But obviously,...
A silent velvet footstep filled me, unwelcome yet so needed. You finally found my hidden shore with grains of time and ocean of the most secret secrets, violet and red; left a trail of deep blue footsteps on my glowing beach of soul, and no matter ho...
All right, You Great Git, You've asked for it. I'll cover the world in Tastee-Freez and Wimpy Burgers. I'll fill it with concrete runways, motorways, aircraft, television, automobiles, advertising, plastic flowers, frozen food and supersonic bangs. I...
Girl lithe and tawny, the sun that forms the fruits, that plumps the grains, that curls seaweeds filled your body with joy, and your luminous eyes and your mouth that has the smile of the water. A black yearning sun is braided into the strands of you...
What do you know of gods and saints?” I ask, filling my voice with scorn. His fingers drift to the silver oak leaf of Saint Camulos on his cloak. “I know that what our saints want is not always made clear to us. Sometimes, it is their wish for us...
Reality is a complex phenomenon, filled with dimensions, not the least of which are two that Christians affirm and understand: the physical and the spiritual. We are invited by Cervantes to enter into Don Quixote's imaginary world and reflect on thes...
I introduced Nora as my wife, though that was a lie. Old people, that's what they wanted to hear. If you were married, you were mature, reliable, exactly like them, because in their day men and women didn't just live together--they made a commitment,...
Esau’s smile was like the face of God because it was grace-filled. It was compassionate and merciful. Esau did not approach wanting the vengeance he once desired. He came with forgiveness. When people see you today, will they say it is “like seei...
You can buy canned pumpkin puree or cut up a fresh pumpkin into chunks, steam it until it is tender, and puree the f*ck out of it until you have 1 1/2 cups. If you try to make this chili with pumpkin pie filling, don't complain about how f*cked up it...
I would probably have to say that reading fiction — those stories fill the space that other people might use religious stories for. The bulk of what I know about human life I’ve gotten from novels. And I think the thing about novels that make the...
Do you wake up as I do, having forgotten what it is that hurts or where, until you move? There is a second of consciousness that is clean again. A second that is you, without memory or experience, the animal warm and waking into a brand new world. Th...
I belong to clever words and bedtime stories even a good riddle or two I belong to the sound of music and dance to my own rhythm I belong to the sunlight on a chilly autumn day when the world awaits a new beginning I belong by the shore under a star-...
They shout that they want to shape a better future, but it's not true. The future is only an indifferent void no one cares about,but the past is filled with life, and its countenance is irritating, repellent, wounding, to the point that we want to de...
Perhaps the most important thing we bring to another person is the silence in us, not the sort of silence that is filled with unspoken criticism or hard withdrawal. The sort of silence that is a place of refuge, of rest, of acceptance of someone as t...
In anything fit to be called by the name of reading, the process itself should be absorbing and voluptuous; we should gloat over a book, be rapt clean out of ourselves, and rise from the perusal, our mind filled with the busiest, kaleidoscopic dance ...
I spent most of my teen years trying to figure out the rules of life, theories for why things happened, why people behaved as they did, and mostly I came to the conclusion that either there were no rules, or the rules sucked. Reading science fiction ...
