At the time of Lewis and Clark, setting the prairies on fire was a well-known signal that meant, ‘Come down to the water.’ It was an extravagant gesture, but we can’t do less. If the landscape reveals one certainty, it is that the extravagant g...
I sit beside the fire and think Of all that I have seen Of meadow flowers and butterflies In summers that have been Of yellow leaves and gossamer In autumns that there were With morning mist and silver sun And wind upon my hair I sit beside the fire ...
I feel weird spilling it now but have to. Because after a while, it took root, the way shared stories do when you live with them long enough. They affect your DNA like radiation. They give birth to you.
One day Mrs. Goodkind said, 'Pickles, you are not a bad cat. You are not a good cat. You are good and bad. And bad and good. You are a mixed-up cat. What you need is a good home. Then you will be good.'
Thus far we have been able to protect [our children] from the deep and enduring traumas that scar the minds and selves of so many of the patients I see. How — how?—can I make it always so?
Reeve shakes his head and exhales loudly. “That’s not what I’m saying and you know it!” He looks away. “Can you just . . . can you go get dressed and come with me and we’ll talk about it later? My mom’s expecting you.
Don't go to sleep, Ginger-Sun." "Draz-" "I know," he muttered, "'Behave, Baz. She's been through a lot. And don't make a baby for at least three months.'" "They told you not to touch me for three months?" "Let's just say it was strongly suggested.
There appears to be a vast amount of confusion on this point, but I do not know many Negroes who are eager to be "accepted" by white people, still less to be loved by them; they, the blacks, simply don't wish to be beaten over the head by the whites ...
Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny ...
I want to sprint into her open arms, but I run as fast as two shoes tied together and thrown over a telephone wire. I’m like Roger Bannister, now that he’s in a wheelchair.
The salesman said the sale was happening because all the gizmos in the store had to be liquidated. It was a lot of solidfluid, and I would have bought something, but the only thing I was thirsty for was her love.
I was half asleep when I first saw her. She thought I was being flirty and winking at her. One eye open, one eye shut, that’s the best way to see love.
Silence is expansive, filling up a whole room in seconds, like a balloon filled with awkwardness. It’s amazing how saying nothing can be so different from having nothing to say.
I am Clap Man. It’s a reverse super power, because instead of me doing the heavy lifting, I just applaud and encourage and others do all the work.
I have two hands, so when I’m networking and I meet two new people, is it OK to shake both their hands at once? Or would it be more appropriate to organize a group hug?
Resentment is the act of stabbing yourself repeatedly in the heart with a knife, hoping the other person dies.
If the majority view, whether in government or in the scientific establishment, is wrong, toleration of dissent increases the odds that their errors will eventually be discovered. But even if the majority view is correct, as it often may be, it is mo...
The inability of Darwinian psychology to account for human reasoning is devastating to its pretensions to be a science. The prestige of science depends on the application of highly advanced practical and theoretical reason. A 'science' that is incomp...
Charred, blackened, and cooked, the morsel was brought to the mouth and chewed, contemplated, and swallowed with relish. There was no sauce or seasoning and no consideration for aesthetics or art. Yet the combination of meat and fire yielded somethin...
A library should fill our leisure with adventure. It is a refuge from the commonplace and the dull, a sanctuary where all the trials, the tribulations, and the boredoms of the outer world are forbidden and where such an evil thing as a tax-collector ...
We know what the birth of a revolution looks like: A student stands before a tank. A fruit seller sets himself on fire. A line of monks link arms in a human chain. Crowds surge, soldiers fire, gusts of rage pull down the monuments of tyrants, and may...
