Very soon she'll join all the others who know the secret and will not tell it. Or cannot. Or try and fail because they do not know enough. They can be recognized. White faces, dazed eyes, aimless gestures, high-pitched laughter. The way they walk and...
Human social life, I suggest, is the magma that erupts and builds up, so to speak, at the fault lines where natural human capacities meet and grind against and over natural human limitations…. This meeting of powers and limitations produces a creat...
I recognized the handwriting, and my heart gave a skip; when I opened it I got a turn, for it began, 'To my beloved Hector,' and I thought, by God she's cheating on me, and has sent me the wrong letter by mistake. But in the second line was a referen...
A man may be ‘dated’ in the sense that the forms, the set-up, the paraphernalia, whereby he expresses the matter of permanent interest, are those of a particular age. In that sense the greatest writers are often the most dated. No one is more unm...
Christmas Eve, I give him packages which I open for him, since the bows and paper represent more labor than he could manage: music videos by the Nashville singers he thinks particularly sexy, fleece-lined slippers decorated with images of bacon and e...
God clues us in to the fact that, "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." In short, God is not logical. This is not to say that he is illogical, only that he is not limited ...
Music escapes ideological characterization. Just as there are some social scientists who believe that what cannot be measured does not truly exist, and some psychologists used to believe that consciousness does not exist because it cannot be observed...
Though blessed with the enviable properties of a mink coat—graceful, unreasonable, and impractical no matter what she was draped over—she was nevertheless one of those people whose personality proved to be the bane of modern mathematicians. She w...
Whatever it is, don't do it!" said Catarina. "It's a bad idea." "And why do you say that?" "Because they're the only kind you have," she said. " I have known you a long time, and I am absolutely certain on this subject. If you are planning on becomin...
Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines. It is not to lead our neighbor into a corner where ther...
Writing keeps me at my desk, constantly trying to write a perfect sentence. It is a great privilege to make one’s living from writing sentences. The sentence is the greatest invention of civilization. To sit all day long assembling these extraordin...
Lines I die but when the grave shall press The heart so long endeared to thee When earthy cares no more distress And earthy joys are nought to me. Weep not, but think that I have past Before thee o'er the sea of gloom. Have anchored safe and rest at ...
A large class of readers … will suffer greatly from the introduction into the pages of this work of words printed with all their letters, which it has become the custom to represent by the initial and final letter only—a blank line filling the in...
There are map people whose joy is to lavish more attention on the sheets of colored paper than on the colored land rolling by. I have listened to accounts by such travelers in which every road number was remembered, every mileage recalled, and every ...
This Jesus of Nazereth without money and arms, conquered more millions than Alexander, Caeser, Muhammad and Napoleon; without science and learning, He shed more light on matters human and divine than all philosophers and scholars combined; without th...
For certain he hath seen all perfectness For certain he hath seen all perfectness. Who among other ladies hath seen mine: They that go with her humbly should combine To thank their God for such peculiar grace. So perfect is the beauty of her face Tha...
We were just sitting there talking when Peter Maurin came in. We were just sitting there talking when lines of people began to form saying, "We need bread."....If there were six small loaves and a few fishes, we had to divide them. There was always b...
[last lines] Mrs. Marcus: [as she, with Emmeline and Monica in tow, enter the prison hospital, right after Benjy throws the banana peel on the floor] Now see here, you idiots, it's all your fault, because if you hadn't... [slips on the banana peel an...
[last lines] Bettina Peterson: You look lost. Chuck Noland: I do? Bettina Peterson: Where're you headed? Chuck Noland: Well, I was just about to figure that out. Bettina Peterson: Well, that's 83 South. And this road here will hook you up with I-40 E...
[first lines] George Hayden: Ha ha ha ha ha. Come on Charlie stop messing about, we really have to get down to it now. I just hope our friendship survives the day, that's all. Charlie Chaplin: Ha George, don't be so melodramatic. George Hayden: Well ...
[first lines] Andrea Phillips: Okay. You all right? Captain Richard Phillips: Yeah. Andrea Phillips: You'd think these trips would get easier, but it's just the opposite. Captain Richard Phillips: Well, I feel the same way, Ange. Andrea Phillips: I k...
