I was wrong. I should have never doubted you. I do trust you. I love you, and I can't do this anymore. I don't want to be..." He struggled to find the right words. "... you." And then, finally, his arms slackened, releasing her, giving her the choice...
A human being without the proper empathy or feeling is the same as an android built so as to lack it, either by design or mistake. We mean, basically, someone who does not care about the fate which his fellow living creatures fall victim to; he stand...
The truth is, it's not the act that I'm scared of, but giving myself so entirely to someone. As long as there are lines to draw and boundaries to cling to, I can pretend that I'm safe from the wanting that threatens to consume me. I'm separate, still...
Today the average lifetime is over seventy years, long enough for a great number of accomplishments. But this development has occurred within the present century. Before that, people tended to die much younger than they do today, and among those earl...
You say great artists sell their souls for their art?" "Maybe," she ventured. "That's true, I suppose. If you're doing it right, anyway. I've probably sold mine. Jack's certainly sold his. And you, I imagine." "I have not!" she said, anger showing cl...
A tired starving dog so thin and frail it looks like it could be knocked over by the wind. But it's staring at me. Unafraid. Mouth opened. Tongue lolling. I want to laugh out loud. I glanced around quickly before scooping the dog into my arms. I don'...
Depression is a disorder of mood, so mysteriously painful and elusive in the way it becomes known to the self--to the mediating intellect--as to verge close to being beyond description. It thus remains nearly incomprehensible to those who have not ex...
Many beginners also at times possess great spiritual avarice. They hardly ever seem content with the spirit God gives them. They become unhappy and peevish because they don't find the consolation they want in spiritual things. Many never have enough ...
He was pierced and scourged and mocked. He was cursed and raised up on a tree, but He was in that ancient pose of victory. An old man on a hill, a blind man between two pillars, the God Man on a cross. Glory is sacrifice, glory is exhaustion, glory i...
Her eyes traveled down the black T-shirt he wore. Pfft, he might as well be naked. It clung to him like a second skin giving her a clear view of lean, hard muscles. She licked her lips. Gods, what it would feel like to be his T-shirt. She was positiv...
A dangerous glint came into his eyes. "Gabi, if I ever show up in your bedroom in the middle of the nigh, believe me, it won't be to give you a morality lesson." She felt the promise of that through her body down to her toes. But she said, "If anyone...
I breathe in. The water will wash my wounds clean. I breathe out. My mother submerged me in water when I was a baby, to give me to God. It has been a long time since I thought about God, but I think about him now. It is only natural. I am glad, sudde...
Are you an optimist or a pessimist?" "I can't remember. Which?" "Do you know what those words mean?" "Not really." "An optimist is positive and hopeful. A pessimist is negative and cynical." "I'm an optimist." "Well, that's good, because there’s no...
Fish held the silence for so long that I had to restrain myself from prodding her. That's never a good idea. Sometimes people hesitate because they don't have the courage to come out with whatever needs to be said; other times they desperately want t...
At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once at thy closet door and say,—'Come out unto us.' But keep thy state; come not into the...
Let's think of that moment when a woman washed the feet of Jesus with the nard, so expensive: it is a religious moment, a moment of gratitude, a moment of love. And he [Judas] stands apart with bitter criticism: 'But this could have been used for the...
Fear that I was very different from everyone else. Fear that deep down inside I was a shallow fraud, that after the revolution or after Jesus came down to straighten everything out, everyone from hippies to hard-hats would unfold and blossom into the...
First, it is a commitment to particularism, to giving priority to the specificity of particulars, not to abstractions and generalities that divert our attention away from concrete realities. Idealizations tend to be partial and distorting, obscuring ...
But he [Depression] just gives me that dark smile, settles into my favorite chair, puts his feet on my table and lights a cigar, filling the place with his awful smoke. Loneliness watches and sighs, then climbs into my bed and pulls the covers over h...
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 ...
First, let no one rule your mind or body. Take special care that your thoughts remain unfettered... . Give men your ear, but not your heart. Show respect for those in power, but don't follow them blindly. Judge with logic and reason, but comment not....