The Librarian swung on. It was slow progress, because there were things he wasn't keen on meeting. Creatures evolved to fill every niche in the environment, and some of those in the dusty immensity of L-space were best avoided. They were much more un...
Over the plains of Ethiopia the sun rose as I had not seen it in seven years. A big, cool, empty sky flushed a little above a rim of dark mountains. The landscape 20,000 feet below gathered itself from the dark and showed a pale gleam of grass, a she...
It's a fine, warm day,” Henry replied. “I thought a spot of fishing?” “Just the thing!” said Felix. “Will you join us, Lucy?” Lucy felt Kitty and Sophia staring at her. Well-bred ladies, evidently, did not fish. “Oh, no! I assure you,...
The doctrine that future happiness depends upon belief is monstrous. It is the infamy of infamies. The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation and experience merits everlastin...
The village lay in the hollow, and climbed, with very prosaic houses, the other side. Village architecture does not flourish in Scotland. The blue slates and the grey stone are sworn foes to the picturesque; and though I do not, for my own part, disl...
In the Garden story, good and evil are found on the same tree, not in separate orchards. Good and evil give meaning and definition to each other. If God, like us, is susceptible to immense pain, He is, like us, the greater in His capacity for happine...
But why would they do that? What is to be asked? He was a man who sees things -- very ordinary things. A hat left on the floor of a café in Kingstown, a proverb overheard, an old fisherman mending a net: these, for him, were a kind of incitement. Th...
And there has been no attempt to investigate it,' I said, 'to see what it really is?' 'Eh, Cornel,' said the coachman's wife, 'wha would investigate, as ye call it, a thing that nobody believes in? Ye would be the laughing-stock of a' the country-sid...
I have found that if I tend to a person’s illness rather than to the person, I am going to treat that person as if they are their illness. In doing so, I run the risk of limiting them greatly and helping them to focus in on their illness as if that...
On the ethics of war the Quran and the New Testament are worlds apart. Whereas Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek, the Quran tells us, 'Whoso commits aggression against you, do you commit aggression against him' (2:194). The New Testament says no...
Ginny Cupper took me in her car out to the spread fields of Indiana. Parking near the edge of woods and walking out into the sunny rows of corn, waving seeds to a yellow horizon. She wore a white blouse and a gray patch of sweat under her arms and th...
The War Department in Washington briefly weighed more ambitious schemes to relieve the Americans on a large scale before it was too late. But by Christmas of 1941, Washington had already come to regard Bataan as a lost cause. President Roosevelt had ...
Ideally, what should be said to every child, repeatedly, throughout his or her school life is something like this: 'You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination. W...
Be patient and wait for God to direct your path. God loves you. He has a plan and a purpose for your life. The purpose of every Christian's life is to work out their salvation, but as God has lovingly created each of us with unique features and attri...
Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion. Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave and eats a bread it does not harvest. Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountif...
Running isn't a sport for pretty boys...It's about the sweat in your hair and the blisters on your feet. Its the frozen spit on your chin and the nausea in your gut. It's about throbbing calves and cramps at midnight that are strong enough to wake th...
It's my opinion he don't want to kill you,' said Perea - 'at least not yet. I've heard deir idea is to scar and worry a man wid deir spells, and narrow misses, and rheumatic pains, and bad dreams, and all dat, until he's sick of life. Of course, it's...
This is the true story of my life, as told by a complete liar (me). While that sounds like an honest statement, it’s also a lie. I just can’t help myself. Unless I’m helping myself to seconds at dinner. You see, I can’t possibly be a complete...
I've never had a boy in here," Martin said in a serious voice. "I've never touched another man, as a matter of fact. . . .except for my father. That was my duty." Blomkvist's temples were pounding. He could not put his weight on his feet without bein...
Let me give you some counsel, bastard,” Lannister said. “Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.” Jon was ...
Funny thing how it is. If a man owns a little property, that property is him, it's part of him, and it's like him. If he owns property only so he can walk on it and handle it and be sad when it isn't doing well, and feel fine when the rain falls on i...
