Based on our badly borrowed misunderstanding of the words ‘secular’ and ‘spiritual’ we seem to have become blinded by the dominant intellectual ideology of our times, according to which schools as secular organizations are supposed to not hav...
I thought you could build a story that would function as a machine or else a complex of machines, each one moving separately, yet part of a process that ultimately would produce an emotion or a sequence of emotions. You could swap out parts, replace ...
Eating words and listening to them rumbling in the gut is how a writer learns the acid and alkali of language. It is a process at the same time physical and intellectual. The writer has to hear language until she develops perfect pitch, but she also ...
Sully's, on South Prospect, was the quintessential biker-bar, complete with hefty, leather-clad Harley worshippers, and stringy-haired heroin-addicted women who made the rounds among the bikers. Its décor was decidedly Medieval Garage Sale, with a d...
So I make no effort to hide my pain. I don’t ever put it all on display like this—but for today and all the rest of the days of the trial, I must. My every flinch, every flicker of pain, will be magnified a hundred times over, then dissected by t...
But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us...
Since September, I sat one seat behind Anna in algebra. Passed papers to her every day. Studied for tons of tests together. Though it often seemed impossible, Eventually, We always found the unknown for X. But not this time. This equation Bounces aga...
In the beginning of the eighteenth century, made the first serious attempt to apply the doctrine [ ] to the living world. In the latter part of it, , , and took up the work more vigorously and with better qualifications. The question of special creat...
I feel like how you matter is defined by the things that matter to you. You matter as much as the things that matter to you do. And I got so backwards, trying to make myself matter to him. All this time, there were real things to care about: real, go...
I feel like, like, how you matter is defined by the things that matter to you. You matter as much as the things that matter to you do. And I got so backwards, trying to make myself matter to him. All this time, there were real things to care about: r...
Though at times interested in reforms, notably prohibition (I have never tasted alcoholic liquor), I was inclined to be bored by ethical casuistry; since I believed conduct to be a matter of taste and breeding, with virtue, delicacy, and truthfulness...
The world is full of uncertainty and the road you are traveling may be a bit scary at times, but don’t ever lose faith. Let go of the scary things that are holding you back and start noticing the great realities unfolding around you. Most of all, b...
...by the time we understand the pattern we are in, the definition we are making for ourselves, it's too late to break out of the box. We can only live in terms of the definition, like the prisoner in the cage in which he cannot lie or stand or sit, ...
I have now gone through the examination of the four books ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; and when it is considered that the whole space of time, from the crucifixion to what is called the ascension, is but a few days, apparently not more t...
When we did eventually get to the party - me walking next to Dad's Volvo driving at five miles an hour - I had a horrible time. Everyone laughed at first but then more or less ignored me. In a mood of defiant stuffed oliveness I did have a dance by m...
Yes,” said Cooley. “That is the question, as the Bard might say.” “The Bard?” “What’s so funny?” said Cooley. “Nothing, sir,” I said. “I just didn’t know people still used that term.” “Well, I’m a people, Burke. Am I not...
So, yes, I should have just surrendered, cinched the entitled scion her little pouch of entitlements, put in my calls to the name shufflers, done my duty. I thought about that moment later on. Maybe I got extratuned to the concept of bitchhood once I...
In the rosy glow it diffused her companions seemed full of amiable qualities. She liked their elegance; their lightness, their lack of emphasis: even the self-assurance which at times was so like obtuseness now seemed the natural sign of social ascen...
I have lived recklessly, gambled my income away at the horse races, gone whoring, have been more drunk than sober, beaten men to a pulp with my hands, have had a man’s nose cut off for insulting my father and have been indebted to villains more tim...
For me, the times I always regret are missed opportunities to say farewell to good people, to wish them long life and say to them in all sincerity, "You build and do not destroy; you sow goodwill and reap it; smiles bloom in the wake of your passing,...
A motion picture, or music, or television, they have to maintain a certain decorum in order to be broadcast to a vast audience. Other forms of mass media cost too much to produce a risk reaching only a limited audience. Only one person. But a book. ....
