He wanted me to understand two big things: First, that nobody, no group, is above others. Public servants are obliged to level with everybody, whether or not they'll like what he has to say. And second, that politics was a matter of personal honor. A...
If you can try to nap where someone's sitting, Although there is another empty chair, Then rub against his ankle without quitting Until he rises from your favorite lair; If you can whine and whimper by a portal Until the bolted door is opened wide, T...
I came to regard my body in a new light. For the first time I apprehended the little mounds on my chest as teats for the suckling of young, and their physical resemblance to udders on cows or the swinging distensions on lactating hounds was suddenly ...
Don't tell me about the Press. I know *exactly* who reads the papers. The Daily Mirror is read by the people who think they run the country. The Guardian is read by people who think they *ought* to run the country. The Times is read by the people who...
now look, she said, stretched out on the bed, I don’t want anything personal, let’s just do it, I don’t want to get involved, got it? she kicked off her high-heeled shoes… sure, he said, standing there, let’s just pretend that we’ve alrea...
As a result of his experiments he concluded that imitation was a real evil that had to be broken before real rhetoric teaching could begin. This imitation seemed to be an external compulsion. Little children didn’t have it. It seemed to come later ...
You’ve got to live right, too. It’s the way you live that predisposes you to avoid the traps and see the right facts. You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It’s easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally. That’s the...
Whose truth do you want to know, Dr. Amin Jaafari? The truth of a Bedouin who thinks he’s free and clear because he’s got an Israeli passport? The truth of a serviceable Arab per excellence who’s honored wherever he goes, who gets invited to fa...
She would not say of any one in the world that they were this or were that. She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on. She had a perpetual sense, as sh...
Once upon a time, my government turned my city into a police state, kidnapped me, and tortured me. When I got free, I decided that the problem wasn’t the system, but who was running it. Bad guys had gotten into places of high office. We needed good...
I just read this great quote by Junot Diaz, he was talking about true intimacy, and he was saying that it was the willingness to be vulnerable and to be found out. That’s what I felt that YA did. It wasn't pretentious, and it wasn’t hiding its he...
The Doctor: Hello, I've come to see the Lord Mayor. Idris Hopper: Have you got an appointment? The Doctor: No, just an old friend passing by, bit of a surprise. Can't wait to see her face! Idris Hopper: Well, she's just having a cup of tea. The Docto...
The summer I turned eleven, I found out that ghosts are real. Guess it's hard to rest nice and easy in your coffin if you got stuff on your mind. Your soul stays chained to earth instead of zipping up to heaven to sing in one of the angel choirs. Som...
Many years ago I was so innocent I still considered it possible that we could become the humane and reasonable America so many members of my generation used to dream of. We dreamed of such an America during the Great Depression, when there were no jo...
(It starts with) One thing, I don’t know why It doesn’t even matter how hard you try Keep that in mind, I designed this rhyme To explain in due time All I know time is a valuable thing Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings Watch it count down to...
I had crossed fifty years of my life, and come across uncountable females as son, husband, father, friend in my life. Coming across several women I carefully studied most of them, and feels that I got master knowing female. But every time when my hea...
I’m an observer. I am fascinated by people and how their minds work (and, of course, my own). Why we are the way we are, why we do the things we do – and that interest drives my writing. I was a physicist before fiction claimed my soul, so I’m ...
For those who seem to have difficulty moving forward: "Sometimes Destiny is calling but you refuse to give in to the signs because of past hurts and baggages. Sometimes the love you are searching for all this time is just right in front of you but yo...
The days I’d passed with my mom before she died were still there, it seemed, seared into the corners of my heart. The atmosphere of the station brought it all back. I could see myself running to the hospital, glad to be seeing my mother again. You ...
I was Juliet and Quinn was Romeo, and the lines weren't dead black-and-white words on a page but somehow alive, as natural and real as the argument we'd had about the spider and the fly. The rows of empty seats were gone, and we were in a candlelit b...
I noticed (the ball) was multicolored. One side was green and the other was red. When we got to the gathering I held that ball up and I said, 'Before we begin, will you tell me what color this ball is?' They said, 'red.' I said, 'no, it's green.' We ...