Dead Butterfly By Ellen Bass For months my daughter carried a dead monarch in a quart mason jar. To and from school in her backpack, to her only friend’s house. At the dinner table it sat like a guest alongside the pot roast. She took it to bed, pr...
The Jews are a peculiar people: Things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews. Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people, and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it. Poland and Czechoslovakia did it. Turkey threw ou...
My father gave me a ruined boy to compensate for the fact that he does not love me. The boy is fragile, broken—broke himself—broke everything. I asked him why he did it. He said because the world was unlivable. He said it was unlovable, but I thi...
I have a friend who feels sometimes that the world is hostile to human life--he says it chills us and kills us. But how could we be were it not for this planet that provided our very shape? Two conditions--gravity and a livable temperature range betw...
The Internet was always destined to be...The framework for its invention has always existed so to one day provide a vehicle for Critical Mass Consciousness. Through its speed and convenience, the Internet has the power for global and indeed universal...
was a very singular Man: He has none of the manners or ways of the world. A tolerable mathematician He gained his livelihood I believe by teaching the mathematics to young people. He pursued science always with mathematical views. He seemed little at...
Tolerance, which is one form of love of neighbor, must manifest itself not only in our personal relations, but also in the arena of society as well. In the world of opinion and politics, tolerance is that virtue by which liberated minds conquer the e...
My dis-interest in what people speak of as "women's problems," "women's literature." Have women a special sensibility? No. There are individuals uniquely talented & uniquely equipped to interpret the complex symbolism of the world but they are certai...
Many journalists now are no more than channelers and echoers of what George Orwell called the 'official truth'. They simply cipher and transmit lies. It really grieves me that so many of my fellow journalists can be so manipulated that they become re...
Mathematics is not a book confined within a cover and bound between brazen clasps, whose contents it need only patience to ransack; it is not a mine, whose treasures may take long to reduce to possessions, but which fill only a limited number of vein...
To be American is to be part of a dialogical and democratic operation that grapples with the challenge of being human in an open-ended and experimental manner. Although America is a romantic project in which a paradise, a land of dreams, is fanned an...
My Creed I do not choose to be a common man, It is my right to be uncommon … if I can, I seek opportunity … not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen. Humbled and dulled by having the State look after me. I want to take the calculated risk...
I am, apparently, of that rare breed that likes to write. The demands of a chapter pull me from bed in the morning, and regardless of how well I think I know the day's road ahead, there are always surprises. But the pleasures that come from writing a...
We have a bad habit of seeing books as sort of cheaply made movies where the words do nothing but create visual narratives in our heads. So too often what passes for literary criticism is "I couldn't picture that guy", or "I liked that part", or "thi...
As I see it the world is undoubtedly in need of a new religion, and that religion must be founded on humanist principles. When I say religion, I do not mean merely a theology involving belief in a supernatural god or gods; nor do I mean merely a syst...
Otto Meyer: [Honking car as it pulls into the Ray & Irwin Garage] Fellas. I'm glad you're here. Look, I need your help. Here's what happened. I had this blowout. I think there's a spare in the back. It may be a little flat. Take a look at it will you...
Melville Crump: The man said there was a certain amount of money buried down in this park. Lennie Pike: That's right. It was under a big W. Say what is a big W? Ding Bell: If we find out, we'll send you a wire. Melville Crump: It's only a possibility...
Robert Frobisher: [narrating] Dinner of pheasant with Bordeaux rich as buttercream. How I love to listen to men of distinguished lives sing of past follies and glories. The only broken note in the entire evening was Ayrs' wife, Jocasta, excusing hers...
Alfredo: Living here day by day, you think it's the center of the world. You believe nothing will ever change. Then you leave: a year, two years. When you come back, everything's changed. The thread's broken. What you came to find isn't there. What w...
Grace: What? What is it? Tom: A man can't really be blamed for being scared, now can he? Grace: No. Tom: No. I was scared, Grace. I used you and I am sorry. I'm stupid, I am, maybe even arrogant sometimes. Grace: You are, Tom. Tom: Although using peo...
Alfred: [about Selina Kyle] You two should exchange notes over coffee. Bruce Wayne: So now you're trying to set me up with a jewel thief? Alfred: At this point, I'd set you up with a chimpanzee if it'd brought you back to the world! Bruce Wayne: Ther...
