Not until the beginning of the 20th century did Europe's urban populations finally become self-sustaining: before then, constant immigration of healthy peasants from the countryside was necessary to make up for the constant deaths of city dwellers fr...
Whoever has experienced the power and the unrestrained ability to humiliate another human being automatically loses his own sensations. Tyranny is a habit, it has its own organic life, it develops finally into a disease. The habit can kill and coarse...
The business man who assumes that this life is everything, and the mystic who asserts that it is nothing, fail, on this side and on that, to hit the truth. "Yes, I see, dear; it's about halfway between," Aunt Juley had hazarded in earlier years. No; ...
When I first accepted my own death, the world was intantly changed. It was a completely new sensation. It took something like this to finally open my eyes. Before, I had simply shut myself off so that I could not see, could not hear. What had I been ...
…Finally, although Tennent’s Super Strong lager, White Lightning, and for the rare rich alcoholic Stella Artois are perfectly acceptable drinks, could you please come up with something less damaging? I think lighter fuel is better for you and con...
I’m proud of you, son,” he said. “I guess it has finally sunk in that it’s important to stand up for yourself in this world.” Rocky shook his head. “It’s more important to stand up for someone who can’t stand up for herself,” he had...
Finally, she said: “I’m lonely” — it’s weird but you tell the wolves things, sometimes. You can’t help it, all these old wounds come open and suddenly you’re confessing to a wolf who never says anything back. She said: “I’m lonely,�...
When you have dogs, you witness their uncomplaining acceptance of suffering, their bright desire to make the most of life in spite of the limitations of age and disease, their calm awareness of the approaching end when their final hours come. They ac...
If this is my final moment,” she says, “then I can die happy.” “Is that why you’re saying all this? Because you think we’re going to die?” “I don’t know,” she admits. “Dammit, Summer.” He clings to her waist, grip desperate, e...
I don’t know how long we stand there holding each other. It could be ten minutes, an hour, or a day. All I know is that when I finally let go, I can breathe. I can rest. I can live knowing that my baby girl is happy. Knowing that she felt my love.
By-passing all scriptures and all that any teacher has to say, we shall, while respecting every finger that points to the moon, be mindful only of the moon. This habit will make it easier to understand the truth that every statement is wrong, wheneve...
Good dog! Nice fetch!" "He wasn't fetching." "Bring her here, boy. Good job!" The dog looked from Zack to me. "I've been training him," Zack said. "Up till now he's brought home only dead rabbits, but I guess he's finally getting the hang of it.
She waited, thinking you were different from those who used and betrayed her. She believed you would find her, come charging to her rescue. That belief was as misplaced as the monsters we faced were deadly. The day came she finally lost her faith in ...
Stalin had developed an interesting new theory: that resistance to socialism increases as its successes mount, because its foes resist with greater desperation as they contemplate their final defeat. Thus any problem in the Soviet Union could be defi...
Optimism is a matter optics, of seeing what you want to see and not seeing what you don't want to see. Hope, on the other hand, is a Christian virtue. It is the unblinking acknowledgment of all that militates against hope, and the unrelenting refusal...
I just sit where I'm put, composed of stone and wishful thinking: that the deity who kills for pleasure will also heal, that in the midst of your nightmare, the final one, a kind lion will come with bandages in her mouth and the soft body of a woman,...
Liberation, I guess, is everybody getting what they think they want, without knowing the whole truth. Or in other words, liberation finally amounts to being free from things we don't like in order to be enslaved by things we approve of. Here's to the...
It's a damn shame that when I finally fall in love that it had to be after I died." He dropped his head and shut his eyes. Oh, mylanta. Did he just say what I think he did? He looked back up at me, taking my breath. "What are we gonna do?" I knew wha...
I came to the sobering realization that I was not making it out of here alive, no matter what. I was bruised and bloodied in mind and body, surrounded by the most literal interpretation of monsters, and a final nail in the coffin--I was in love with ...
I want morning and noon and nightfall with you. I want your tears, your smiles, your kisses...the smell of your hair, the taste of your skin, the touch of your breath on my face. I want to see you in the final hour of my life...to lie in your arms as...
” She barely got the words out. “Kissing you.” Tom leaned forward again and held the bottom of her chin. He worked his lips over hers until she responded. A soft whimper escaped her throat and he kept at it. Biting, sucking and finally spearing...
