Then the Dean repeated the mantra that has had such a marked effect on the progress of knowledge throughout the ages. “Why don’t we just mix up absolutely everything and see what happens?” he said. And Ridcully responded with the traditional re...
It's important to understand that while honor is an entitlement to respect--and shame comes when you lose that title--a person of honor cares first of all not about being respected but about being worthy of respect.
People talk about the joy of running--of the endorphins and reaching a Zen-like clarity of mind. This had never happened to me. Mostly, all I thought about when I ran was how much further I had to go before I could stop.
It was one of those ones they call screwball comedies, where people mislead and ill-treat each other in the most shocking and baffling way possible, then forgive and forget about it because they happen to like the look of each other. Only they call i...
The magic rarely happens within our comfort zone, but outside it, on the ragged, scary edge, where we have to fight like hell to keep from drowning in the unknown.
While they were speaking of - in their opinion - great things, around about them only little things - also in their opinion - were happening: everywhere the bushes were turning green, the brooding earth was germinating and beginning to play with her ...
Death straps me to the hospital bed, claws its way onto my chest and sits there.I didn't know it would hurt this much. I didn't know that everything good that's ever happened in my life would be emptied out by it.
Lately, they were always reassuring each other that nothing was wrong; and probably it was true—life wasn’t supposed to be incredible, after all. Life wasn’t some incredible movie. Life was all the movies, ever, happening at once. There were go...
TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY. Not true. Today is another day. We have no idea what tomorrow is going to be. It might turn out to be another day, but we can't be sure. If it happens, I'll be the first to say so. But, you know what? By that time, it'll be t...
I still think that everyone's life, no matter how unremarkable, has a singular tragic encounter after which everything that really matters will happen. That moment is the catalyst - the first step in the equation. But knowing the first step will get ...
Perhaps I am the only person who, asked whether she were a witch or not, could truthfully say, "I do not know. I do know some very strange things have happened to me, or through me." Lady Alice Rowhedge
but it seems to me that growing up means you stop hoping for the best, and start expecting the worst. So how do you tell an adult that maybe everything wrong in the world stems from the fact that she’s stopped believing the impossible can happen?
This Earle of Oxford, making of his low obeisance to Queen Elizabeth, happened to let a Fart, at which he was so abashed and ashamed that he went to Travell, 7 yeares. On his returne the Queen welcomed him home, and sayd, My Lord, I had forgott the F...
Why are things beautiful? I don´t know. That´s a good question. Isn´t it pleasing when you ask a question of a person, a teacher, or a speaker, and he or she says, That´s a good question? Don´t you feel good when that happens?
This is what’s happening: together we are descending the stairs of the heart, which lead to the sources. (It is a secret staircase. I knew it existed. Which is why I avoided it. Because it leads to the other-life, deep, underground, the fluvial, th...
Don't give in to fear. Be strong, like i know you are. An never give up, d'you unnerstand, never. No matter what happens. I stare at him. I won't, I says. I ain't no quitter, Pa. That's my girl.
Liz wrenched her hand from his grasp, and this time, she stepped boldly forward. “I will stay and Michael can go.” Her voice did not waiver as she pronounced her own death sentence. No matter what happened to her, she knew she couldn’t let hi...
Jobs are a part of life. Maybe you've heard of the concept. It's called work? See, what happens is that you suffer through doing annoying and humiliating things until you get paid not enough money. Like those Japanese game shows, only without all the...
There is no miserable place waiting for you, no hell realm, sitting and waiting like Alaska—waiting to turn you into ice cream. But whatever you call it—hell or the suffering realms—it is something that you enter by creating a world of neurotic...
Simon: So were you following me? Or is it just an amazing coincidence that you happened to be on the roof of a building I was walking by when I got attacked? Jace: I was following you. Simon: Is this the part where you tell me you're secretly in love...
I'm really trying to dredge up what one might call intellectual and moral material. For example, when do you realize that you are an American? What age does that happen to you? When do you realize what religion your parents practice? When does it all...
