When we turn around & come face to face with our destiny, we discover that words (spoken) are not enough. I know so many people who are brilliant speakers but are quite incapable of practising what they preach. It's one thing to describe a situation ...
I could no longer remember the way my mother's eyes looked before the slowing. Had they always been so red around the edges? Surely, those pockets of gray beneath her lower lashes were new. She still wasn't sleeping well, but perhaps what I was seein...
Vous eprouves trop d'emotion, Hastings, It affects your hands and your wits. Is that a way to fold a coat? And regard what you have done to my pyjamas. If the hairwash breaks what will befall them?' 'Good heavens, Poirot,' I cried, 'this is a matter ...
The managing editor shared Bernstein's fondness for doping things out on the basis of sketchy information. At the same time, he was cautious about what eventually went into print. On more than one occasion, he told Bernstein and Woodward to consider ...
... but I love language. It is a living, breathing, evolving thing, and language has power. Whether in a song lyric, a poem, a speech, or a simple conversation, we’ve all experienced words that resonate with us. They may make us recall a powerful m...
The next time you have the urge to complain, stop and ask yourself what it is you truly want. Do you just want to complain or do you want to improve your situation? Somewhere within each complaint is a genuine desire to improve things, but the compla...
Understand when you listen to your intuition and commit to a life path that is unique to your desires, you’re likely choosing the path less traveled. This means there are going to be substantial obstacles in your way at times, and sometimes it may ...
Sometimes you will not be able to see where you are going; every step will seem uncertain. But know that as long as you follow your intuition and take baby steps, your soul’s inner GPS will guide you home. You will find that you will be the right p...
Thinking about the haves and the have nots, I’m reminded of something Jefferson said. He was sitting at the dining room table in the White House when he picked up his fork, leaned forward in his chair, bunched up his eyebrows in surprise, and said,...
The right-wing Tories and the conservative Whigs fought Napoleon as the Usurper and the Enemy of the Established Order; the liberal Tories and the radical Whigs fought him as the Betrayer of the Revolution and the Enslaver of Europe; they were all ag...
There is a part of me that no one ever sees. I hide behind a mask of heavy make-up and ever-changing hair and clothing. I try to reinvent myself. It doesn’t work. There are times when I am bone-crushingly sad. I just want to curl into a ball and hi...
You can almost always find chains of coincidence to disprove magic. That's because it doesn't happen the way it does in books. It makes those chains of coincidence. That's what it is. It's like if you snapped your fingers and produced a rose but it w...
Desperation is a great giver of clarity: Bartimaeus needed no time to decide what to do next. “Jesus! Son of David!” he shouted. “Have mercy on me!” (Mark 10:47). The crowd turned to him in disgust. “Shut your mouth, son of filth!” But Ba...
Talk of world peace is heard today only among the white peoples, and not among the much more numerous coloured races. This is a perilous state of affairs. When individual thinkers and idealists talk of peace, as they have done since time immemorial, ...
If you want to know what happiness is, you need to go to the philosophers. Start with the Wikipedia article “Philosophy of Happiness.” Then go to the Stanford Online Encyclopedia of Philosophy, search for “happiness,” and follow through the a...
I've never been able to write poetry without having vast tracts of dead time. Poetry requires a certain kind of disciplined indolence that the world, including many prose writers, doesn't recognize as discipline. It is, though. It's the discipline to...
I moonlight as the greatest actor. I smile. I choose the comedy mask every time. I tell those who worry that I am fine, that I always will be. There is nothing to gain from these lies. I win no awards, yet I bow. On that stage I tell my life story wi...
My father told me never to take my foot off a ladder to kick at someone who was kicking at me. When I did that, I would no longer be climbing. While they are kicking, my father told me, I should keep stepping. They can kick only one time. If I contin...
If there is one thought with regard to the Church of Christ, which at times comes to me with overwhelming sorrow; if there is one thought in regard to my own life of which I am ashamed; if there is one thought of which I feel that the Church of Chris...
It is interesting how one word can spark memories that one believes she has buried beyond recognition. War reminded me of the sharp and bittersweet smell of burning homes, temples, and palaces. It made my eyes cloud over with a haze of dense smoke, k...
I had no fear of the stream's perils, and I listened with the greatest contentment to the quiet slap of water on rocks, the running whisper of the current, and the taps and creaks and croaks that rose with the mist around me. Overhead swing the glitt...
