A beam or pillar can be used to batter down a city wall, but it is no good for stopping up a little hole - this refers to a difference in function. Thoroughbreds like Qiji and Hualiu could gallop a thousand li in one day, but when it came to catching...
The last clear thought I have is of my grandmother’s rust-colored wall clock ticking away in the darkness of my apartment—my sanctuary where I dreamed and desired and hoped for goodness and love. I wonder how long that clock will tick without any...
Money, dished out in quantities fitting the context, is a social lubricant here. It eases passage even as it maintains hierarchies. Fifty naira for the man who helps you back out from the parking spot, two hundred naira for the police officer who sto...
Do you need help with anything?" he asked with a wicked arched brow. "Maybe with cookies for Santa." Scowling because no one was here but us, I said, "You're a bit late for that. Santa already came." He hadn't moved, but I knew better than to think h...
Goodnight, Sam." Sam took a deep breath and tried to settle himself. It did not good, instead he inhaled a hint of her vanilla perfume mixed with the smell of sea salt. He couldn't help himself. His mind drifted. He longed to buy his face in her neck...
Lucy preferred gin and tonics during the summer and switched over to whiskey sours in the winter. At dinner, a sit-down affair with the family, Lucy drank whatever the Temerlins drank, including expensive French wines. "She never gets obnoxious, even...
Few minds are spacious; few even have an empty place in them or can offer some vacant point. Almost all have narrow capacities and are filled by some knowledge that blocks them up. What a torture to talk to filled heads, that allow nothing from the o...
I was set free! I dissolved in the sea, became white sails and flying spray, became beauty and rhythm, became moonlight and the ship and the high dim-starred sky! I belonged, without past or future, within peace and unity and a wild joy, within somet...
At Camp Don Bosco, there were Bibles all over the place, mostly 1970s hippie versions like Good News for Modern Man. They had groovy titles like The Word or The Way, and translated the Bible into “contemporary English,” which meant Saul yelling a...
*For eleven years, I've been worked over and abused in ways you can't imagine by things you don't want to know about. I've killed every kind of vile, black-souled, dead-eyed nightmare that ever made you piss your pjs and cry for mommy in the middle o...
That night, the Raka conspirators had plenty of news to report, particularly Ochobu. Aly had not known that the mages of the Chain had been laboring to eliminate any mages who had worked magic on the Crown’s behalf. So far they had killed seven of ...
As spiritual searchers we need to become freer and freer of the attachment to our own smallness in which we get occupied with me-me-me. Pondering on large ideas or standing in front of things which remind us of a vast scale can free us from acquisiti...
Steve Rogers: [in an elevator] You know, they used to play music. Nick Fury: Yeah. My grandfather operated one of these things for forty years. My granddad - worked in a nice building, he got good tips. He'd walk home every night, roll of ones stuffe...
Kristofferson: Uh, do you mind if I slide my bed roll slightly out from under the train set? It's hard to sleep in that corkscrew position. Ash: [in the top bunk] There's a lot of attitudes going on around here. Don't let me get one. Kristofferson: N...
Harry Potter: How come you're not at the feast? Luna Lovegood: I've lost all my possessions. Apparently people have been hiding them. Harry Potter: That's awful! Luna Lovegood: Oh, it's all good fun. But as this is the last night, I really do need th...
Sushi Bar Assistant: [Japanese] What'd ya want? The Bride: [English] I beg your pardon? Hattori Hanzo: [English] Oh..."drink" [makes drinking motion with hand] The Bride: [English] Oh, yes, a bottle of warm sake please. Hattori Hanzo: [English] Warm ...
Terence: We wrote one last night outside the mini mart. Morris called it "Stuart Drives A Comfortable Car" and then like in country songs, you know, in parentheses it says "There's Usually Someone in the Trunk." And, and um, I came up with a tune jus...
Jöns: It's hell with women and hell without women. No matter how you reason it seems like the logic thing to do is to kill them while it's still fun. Blacksmith Plog: Bickering and swill! Jöns: Screaming babies and diapers full of piss! Blacksmith ...
Love never lies and it never tries, it's unafraid and heaven made. Keep the faith, surrender the time, just like a grape we need to ripen on the vine. Be like a fairy, constantly glow, leave a trail of love wherever you go. Do not try to make sense o...
The UK office for National Statistics has identified the things that matter most for happiness as "health, relationships, work, and the environment" - a list that tallies closely with our basic goods. Given that our lives have not noticeably improved...
Alice: Well, when one's lost, I suppose it's good advice to stay where you are, until someone finds you. But who'd ever think to look for me here? [sigh] Alice: Good advice. If I listened earlier, I wouldn't be here. But that's just the trouble with ...
