I am convinced that imprisonment is a way of pretending to solve the problem of crime. It does nothing for the victims of crime, but perpetuates the idea of retribution, thus maintaining the endless cycle of violence in our culture. It is a cruel and...
After you are here, I will try not to become one of those parents who brag incessantly about their children, who force them to recite the alphabet backward or sing the Lord's Prayer in German to horrified dinner guests. One of those parents who tell ...
I had to go back and reread the page a few times. As I read it, I kept drifting out of the book, out of the booth, and coasting on the green crest of the song, to the momentary idea that any point on Earth was mine for the visiting, that I'd lucked o...
I carry my adornments on my soul. I do not dress up like a popinjay; But inwardly, I keep my daintiness. I do not bear with me, by any chance, An insult not yet washed away- a conscience Yellow with unpurged bile- an honor frayed To rags, a set of sc...
I want to fulfill myself in one of the rarest of destinies. I have only a dim notion of what it will be. I want it to have not a graceful curve slightly bent toward evening but a hitherto unseen beauty lovely because of the danger which works a...
Things it helps me to remember When in a bad mood, keep quiet or still. Baggy jumpers don’t suit you. When you’re tired you get doubtful. Difficulties come in spurts. Listen to the echo of your own voice. Avoid be strident. All aeroplanes go thro...
I feel like I’m going to get in a fight one day about the validity of falling in love so fast. Not a heated one because why would I give a shit if some other person gets it or not? Right now, it’s no longer the big flooding rush like when I saw h...
I’ve been kissed by men who did a very good job. But they don’t give kissing their whole attention. They can’t. No matter how hard they try parts of their minds are on something else. Missing the last bus—or their chances of making the gal—...
At Garvin High we were dealt a hard dose of reality this year. People hate. That's our reality. People hate and are hated and carry grudges and want punishments ... I don't know if it's possible to take hate away from people. Not even people like us,...
I looked after that Dudley family for too long, over six years. His daddy would take him to the garage and whip him with a rubber hose-pipe trying to beat the girl out a that boy until I couldn't stand it no more.... I wish to God I'd told John Green...
The clear awareness of having been born into a losing struggle need not lead one into despair. I do not especially the idea that one day I shall be tapped on the shoulder and informed, not that the party is over but that it is most assuredly going on...
Time is nothing, you've one breath which is like a ticking-bomb. You do not know when that breath will finish, but it's a mystery let the inevitability of the last inhalation be your strength to go one in the midst of this harsh cruel world we all li...
And then I recalled those mysterious stories about the waxworkers of the middle ages and the public reprobation attached to their trade. Did they not live in cellars, in the eternal twilight propitious for enchantments and apparitions? Their visionar...
My hair is not the shiniest of bobs My eyes are not the brightest in the room My figure will not get me modeling jobs My smile will not bring young boys to their doom. But do I cry and mourn my average face? Or wish that I had boyfriends at the ready...
[The thief-taker] was conspicuous by his age, I should estimate he is in his middle fifties, and by a bearing, I am tempted to call it dignity, wanting in the others. He has a good head of hair, only a bit thin on top, blond going grey, and sea green...
I never miss Meeting now," I said. "Do not look surprised. I have sent many a prayer heavenward on your behalf. And your father is not home yet. Your uncle sails under more danger of his own making. There is more to living in a town than I knew when ...
There is a sacred calling on your life, and the question is: Will you spend your life flittering and fluttering about or take the time and really heed that call and create your own path to your highest good?...You cannot let other people define your ...
He sat watching the people go by, wondering how a thing of this sort could have come about, I must have let myself get mixed up in something horrible, he thought ... Probably she's the one who did it; I have no control of myself or anything that's ha...
We need saints without cassocks, without veils - we need saints with jeans and tennis shoes. We need saints that go to the movies that listen to music, that hang out with their friends (...) We need saints that drink Coca-Cola, that eat hot dogs, tha...
As far as you can see then you can go. The question is what do you see and how far do you see yourself. Thoughts are as harmless and dangerous they can be. Any person has thoughts about themselves, but what makes them be different or living different...
Nutrition matters for everybody, but you can’t major in it at Harvard. Most top scientists go into other fields. Most of the big studies were done 30 or 40 years ago, and most are seriously flawed. The food pyramid that told us to eat low fat and e...