What I want to impart through our correspondence is that no matter what anyone may be going through, here's the thing: If you love each other, and if your relationship is worth the pain or the hardship, stay with it. The extraordinary treasure of sha...
Elephants, it turns out, are surprisingly stealthy. As the sunlight fades, other species declare their presence. Throngs of zebras and wildebeests thunder by in the distance, trailing dust clouds. Cape buffalo snort and raise their horns and position...
Just like our story, the original Christmas tales were stories of searching, not so much for the lost, as for the familiar. Mary and Joseph sought in Bethlehem- the home of their familial ancestry- a place to start their own family; the three kings f...
Some people love their story that much even if it's of their own misery, even if it ties them to unhappiness, or they don't know how to stop telling it. Maybe it's about loving coherence more than comfort, but it might also be about fear—you have t...
I've been so thoroughly incorporated into the California culture that I practice meditation and go to a therapist, even though I always set a trap: during my meditation I invent stories to keep from being bored, and in therapy I invent stories to kee...
Some false representations contravene the law; some do not. ... The sensibilities of no two men are the same. Some would refuse to sell property without carefully explaining all about its merits and defects, and putting themselves in the purchasers' ...
I am convinced that one should tell one's spiritual director if one has a great desire for Communion, for Our Lord does not come from Heaven every day to stay in a golden ciborium; He comes to find another heaven, the heaven of our soul in which He l...
When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be ve...
Naturally all of them had a sad story: too much notice, not enough, or the worst kind. Some tale about dragon daddies and false-hearted men, or mean mamas and friends who did them wrong. Each story has a monster in it who made them tough instead of b...
I would probably have to say that reading fiction — those stories fill the space that other people might use religious stories for. The bulk of what I know about human life I’ve gotten from novels. And I think the thing about novels that make the...
I prefer to surprise myself as I'm writing. I'm not interested in it if I already know where it's going. So I have only the most general sense of what I'm doing when I start a story. I sometimes have a destination in mind, but how the story is going ...
In anything fit to be called by the name of reading, the process itself should be absorbing and voluptuous; we should gloat over a book, be rapt clean out of ourselves, and rise from the perusal, our mind filled with the busiest, kaleidoscopic dance ...
In Russian fairy tales, the narrative flows a little differently. In those stories, you won’t find a tale for Cinderella, one for Snow White, one for Rapunzel. Instead, a peculiar cast of characters recurs over and over, in nearly every story, perf...
There are those times we are afraid of the dark, but our fears don't mean there is actually danger. God is in the darkness with us, and He can see. His very presence illuminates the dark, driving it out.
I want to be that woman . . . the one who, yes, may have been hurt, but because You {God} reworked her heart she stands whole. Emotionally whole. Free.
I pretty much always knew I wanted to be a writer. I was writing goofy stories when I was 7 or 8. That was what I call 'wishful-thinking writing.' I grew up in the city and always wanted a horse, but there was no way I was getting a horse. So I wrote...
Everybody is important, have some element is peculiarity and a story to tell. Also not only that, a story to learn from. We don't just gain from individuals of impact yet the poor as well. Don't only learn from people of influence only, but the poor ...
A short story I have written long ago would barge into my house in the middle of the night, shake me awake and shout, 'Hey,this is no time for sleeping! You can't forget me, there's still more to write!' Impelled by that voice, I would find myself wr...
They tell you the story of Job so often to remind you when you lose it all, stay calm. I've always refused it. I hated the story. It made no sense, and then I developed the belief that religion’s only purpose is to keep the poor from murdering the ...
If you go all the way back, I've always written science-fiction, I've always written fantasy, I've always written horror stories and monster stories, right from the beginning of my career. I've always moved back and forth between the genres. I don't ...
A story once went the rounds of Israel to the effect that Ben-Gurion described me as 'the only man' in his cabinet. What amused me about is that he (or whoever invented the story) thought that this was the greatest compliment that could be paid to a ...