Being in the habit of saying "Thank you," of making sure that people receive attention so they know you value them, of not presuming that people will always be there--this is a good habit, regardless...make sure to give virtual and actual high-fives ...
The great error consists in supposing that poetry is an unnatural form of language. We should all like to speak poetry at the moment when we truly live, and if we do not speak it, it is because we have an impediment in our speech. It is not song that...
Shebna scraped the tablet clean and began drawing circles in the soft clay. "Suppose you had six figs and you ate two. How many would--" "Four." Hezekiah answered before Shebna finished, and the tutor's thick black eyebrows rose in surprise. "And sup...
There are no brave men and cowardly men in the world, my son. There are only brave men. To be born, to live, to die—that takes courage enough in itself, and more than enough. We are all brave men and we are all afraid, and what the world calls a br...
Yesterday, Amelia and Kit came over for supper, and we took a blanket down to the beach afterward to watch the moon rise. Kit loves to do that, but she always falls asleep before it is fully rise, and I carry her home to Amelia's house. She is certai...
Well, I certainly don't," said Percy sanctimoniously. "I shudder to think what the state of my in-tray would be if I was away from work for five days." "Yeah, someone might slip dragon dung in it again, eh, Perce?" said Fred. "That was a sample of fe...
...hear the language, this English, double-jointed as Bedivere's limbs. It only sounds awkward. In its ability to join one concept to another as with pegs, its dependent clauses, figures of speech and cadenced alliteration, a man can say one thing fi...
I held out a lead figurine of Hades—the little Mythomagic statue Nico had abandoned when he fled camp last winter. Nico hesitated. "I don’t play that game anymore. It’s for kids." "It’s got four thousand attack power," I coaxed. "Five thousan...
To commit to loving a person for five minutes is easy. To commit to loving a person for the rest of your life, after you have met them, is a strong commitment. But when you commit to loving a person before you meet them and for the rest of your life,...
The ruins stretch from the river to the base of that mountain over there, about half a kilometre.’ ‘How far is that in regular measurements?’ Percy asked. Frank rolled his eyes. ‘That is a regular measurement in Canada and the rest of the wor...
Maybe you never stop feeling like an eight-year-old in front of your parents. You resolve to be your mature self, to react in this considered way rather than that elemental way, to breathe evenly from the bottom of your stomach and to see your parent...
Food wasn’t one of the amenities at Cooper, the five-hundred-bed hospital on which millions of poor people depended. Nor was medicine. “Out of stock today” was the nurses’ official explanation. Plundered and resold out of supply cabinets was ...
Start telling the truth now and never stop. Begin by telling the truth to yourself about yourself. Then tell the truth to yourself about someone else. Then tell the truth about yourself to another. Then tell the truth about another to that other. Fin...
If you expand the boundaries of mental illness, which is clealry what has happened in this country during the past twenty-five years, and you treat the people so diagnosed with psychiatric medications, do you run the risk of turning an anger-ridden t...
There are twenty-five thousand, six hundred and twelve things you don't know about me. I'll tell you one each day." "That means it will take you seventy-plus years to know everything about me. When I turn one hundred, that will be the last one. Thoug...
Heat radiated off Henry's face. Salty snot ran down his upper lip. A majestic fart propelled him to the top of Section 12, just at the springing of the stadium's curve. He slapped the sign as if high-fiving a teamate. It gave back a game shudder. He ...
But I thought she thought he was just a big pile of jobbies?” he said. “I seen her oout walkin’, an’ when he comes ridin’ past, she sticks her nose in th’ air and looks the other wa’. In fact, sometimes I seen her wait aroound a full fi...
I had a dream about you. You had just beat me in the 400 Meter IM at the Olympics. But I was competing in a white wedding dress, and you cheated and wore Michael Phelps’ Speedo. Still, I decided to marry you because instead of one ring, you offered...
There is something at the bottom of every new human thought, every thought of genius, or even every earnest thought that springs up in any brain, which can never be communicated to others, even if one were to write volumes about it and were explainin...
I’ve been washing stairs my whole life. One day after the other. Since I was five years old. I’ve never complained. Shame on you. I’m embarrassed to have a son like you…can’t even look after his own bicycle. You just wait until your dad com...
[I]n Africa I was a member of a family—of a sort of family that the people of your culture haven't known for thousands of years. If gorillas were capable of such an expression, they would tell you that their family is like a hand, of which they are...
