Alvin Straight: There's no one knows your life better than a brother that's near your age. He knows who you are and what you are better than anyone on earth. My brother and I said some unforgivable things the last time we met, but, I'm trying to put ...
Sweeney Todd: You have a room over the shop, don't you? If times are so hard, why don't you rent it out? Mrs. Lovett: People think it's haunted. Sweeney Todd: Haunted? Mrs. Lovett: Yeah. And who's to say they're wrong? You see, years ago, something h...
Patroller: [in a vain attempt to escape, Solomon runs into some patrollers who are fixing to hang a trio of slaves] Boy, where are you going? Solomon Northup: To the store, Sir, to Bartholomew's. I was sent there by Mistress Epps. Patroller: [the pat...
Terry Fields: Pardon me, sir, but I lost my I.D. in... in a flood and I'd like to get some Old Harper, hard stuff. Would you mind buying a bottle for me? Bum at Liquor Store: Why certainly! I lost my wife, too - her name wasn't Idy, though, and it wa...
Story to me is life. It’s purpose. We as humans have an the opportunity and obligation to live the most truthful story ever told, unfortunately so few ever live truthfully. They don’t follow their dreams and live lives filled with regrets and “...
If you decide to make someone the enemy and you're pushing very hard against them, you don't affect them at all, but you disconnect yourself form the Stream. If someone cheats you, they cannot diminish your experience. They only diminish their experi...
I didn't write about my mother much in the third year after she died. I was still trying to get my argument straight: When her friends or our relatives wondered why I was still so hard on her, I could really lay out the case for what it had been like...
Never underestimate the power of kindness. It is very contagious. A person whose heart is saddened by the troubles of this world, the loss of a friend or family member, a hard days work, or the struggle of provision can experience joy through a simpl...
In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we're done with it, we may find - if it's a good novel - that we're a bit different from ...
If a mathematician wishes to disparage the work of one of his colleagues, say, A, the most effective method he finds for doing this is to ask where the results can be applied. The hard pressed man, with his back against the wall, finally unearths the...
Surely, our greatest parental hope is that our children attain a state of righteousness. It is the only sure road to happiness. But to attain such a state requires that they be decent as well as compliant. I know many, many young people who are not "...
I'll bite: Hard science TA's and RA's often repair equipment; it's part of our science. If you want a silver spoon, don't go to grad school. Science is all about dangerous chemicals, semi-safe experimental equipment, and 4am drives down gravel roads ...
Sometimes it’s hard to know when you’ve crossed the line from conscientious to compulsive. When you’re in the thick of an assignment, it’s easy to believe that you must spend so much time brainstorming, researching, writing, testing, revising...
They say we live in hard times. They say the world is full of suffering and pain and ignorance and violence. But is that not better than helpless, grinned and beared mediocrity? Is this not the time of opportunity? When will we learn the importance o...
Sometimes it’s hard to know when to let go. It can be so personal…like the autumn leaf still hanging on the limb in the late October sky, Mother Nature sends a gust of wind to nudge it’s stem loose. For us we must listen for our own nudge from ...
I think it’s important to have a good hard failure when you're young. I learned a lot out of that. Because it makes you kind of aware of what can happen to you. Because of it I’ve never had any fear in my whole life when we’ve been near collaps...
In a variation on James's recipe for interesting experience--the familiar leavened by the novel--Hobbs's "art of choosing difficulties" requires selecting projects that are "just manageable." If an activity is too easy, you lose focus and get bored. ...
The Way It Is There’s a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn’t change. People wonder about what you are pursuing. You have to explain about the thread. But it is hard for others to see. While you hold it you can’t g...
Like infants, when they are born into the world, God's children are not born again in the full possession of their spiritual faculties; and it is well and wisely ordered that it is so. What we win easily, we seldom value sufficiently. The very fact t...
They were your friends?" "Yes, they were my friends." "And they will leave you to suffer alone?" "Now I see it." "And until this, were they friends you could trust?" "I could trust them." "I see what you mean. You mean they were the kind of friends t...
Somewhere, beyond blackness, some tyrant host swaps breathing for airlessness to test me. I had no concept of myself, no link to the things I knew. It is hard to explain the lack of anything concrete to people who live in a world of objects, but ther...
