We were all used to Dad's little show-off sessions, and though they were never worthy of excitement, we always tried to humor him. (Last weekend he'd called us out to the lawn to see what a big pile of dandelions he'd weeded.)
The essence and value of the law lies in its stability and durability (...), in its “relative eternity.” Only then does the legislator’s self-limitation and the independence of the law-bound judge find an anchor. The experiences of the French R...
Identity is gradual, cumulative; because there is no need for it to manifest itself, it shows itself intermittently, the way a star hints at the pulse of its being by means of its flickering light. But at what moment in this oscillation is our true s...
And you thought: they're used to it. But that was how those who suffered less always thought about those who suffered more, that they were used to it, that they no longer felt it as you did. Nobody ever got used to it. All they learned to do was to s...
That just goes to show that you never can tell about a person by guessing," Frances informs her niece. "That's why language was invented. Otherwise, we'd all be like dogs, sniffing each other to find out where we stood.
For if there is one lesson worth retaining from the travails of the Cold War and the miseries it brought in its wake, it is the folly of seeking simple answers to complicated questions. It is a lesson which governments still show no sign of learning.
My life's been defined by my actions. I've shaped my destiny through my battles. I would rather keep chasing after my dreams until I crumble into dust than sit around waiting for fate to show me mercy.
Social scientists and psychologists are conducting research studies that clearly show that when we behave and act as if we are happy, confident, healthy or in love, we become happy, confident, healthy and in love.
I have always loved camping, ever since I was eight, and was forcibly stuffed in a trunk and dropped off in the middle of the forest. My dad was a complex man, but I believe he was trying to show me the value of camping.
I wrote my name on the list 10 years ago, and under the date I wrote “In the future.” But how’d I know I’d show up, and not my clone posing as me?
My writing doesn’t improve if you think it’s great, and it doesn’t lessen if you think it sucks. Likewise, you not showing me love doesn’t mean mine for you has to be invisible. The two are as unrelated as me and my foster parents.
there're times when i suspect that the mind has a mind of its own. it shows us pictures. pictures of the past and the might-one-day-be. this mind's mind exerts its own will, too, and has its own voice
You’ll be fine. You’re 25. Feeling [unsure] and lost is part of your path. Don’t avoid it. See what those feelings are showing you and use it. take a breath. You’ll be okay. Even if you don’t feel okay all the time.
This is the paradox of the power of literature: it seems that only when it is persecuted does it show its true powers, challenging authority, whereas in our permissive society it feels that it is being used merely to create the occasional pleasing co...
You don’t know how I feel about you? I try to show you how much I care about you every day. How can you not see that?
She doesn't acknowledge Tucker, and there's no thank you for the cigarettes. She says a person shows their gratitude by action, not by words. So I guess that means she thanks me by smoking every cigarette in every pack.
Oh, love isn't there to make us happy. I believe it exists to show us how much we can endure.
This dream the world is having about itself includes a trace on the plains of the Oregon trail, a groove in the grass my father showed us all one day while meadowlarks were trying to tell something better about to happen.
Fiction shows us the past as well as the present moment in mortal light; it is an art served by the indelibility of our memory, and one empowered by a sharp and prophetic awareness of what is ephemeral. It is by the ephemeral that our feeling is so s...
It seems an odd idea to my students that poetry, like all art, leads us away from itself, back to the world in which we live. It furnishes the vision. It shows with intense clarity what is already there.
Who really can face the future? All you can do is project from the past, even when the past shows that such projections are often wrong. And who really can forget the past? What else is there to know?
