The term rings melodramatic and exaggerated, but a press that—whether from fear, careerism, or conviction—uncritically recites false government claims and reports them as fact, or treats elected officials with a reverence reserved for royalty, ca...
Thousands of years ago, man lived in harmony with the rest of the natural world. Through what we would today call Telepathy, he communicated with animals, plants, and other forms of life-none of which he considered "beneath" himself, only different, ...
At the sound of my name, those two worlds on either side of me collide, and my lips meet his. Time ceases to exist, and so, apparently does any logic that my mind is hanging on to. Logic would say that this is insane; every other fibre of my being sa...
Although previous studies had suggested that friendship--male and female--could be a powerful antidote to stress, more recent research indicates that broken promises, dashed expectations, and other side effects of friendship gone wrong can actually r...
He knew that, from now on, every day would be alike, that they would all bring the same sufferings. And he saw the weeks, the months, the years that awaited him, gloomy and implacable, coming one after the other, falling on him and suffocating him bi...
Look, I don't know what you are, but you're more than a geologist, if you are one at all. I've met lots of geologists on different projects like this, and they're all tiny sunburned men with fetishes for geodes. They wear floppy hats and carry baggie...
Love is the color of red inverted. At least that’s what Gunnar Greenlove told me, and I believe him because he’s from an island where half the people tell only the truth and half tell only lies. Not only that, but the island has a population of t...
Mr. and Mrs. Foster are not my foster parents. Also, they’re not even married to each other. Mr. Foster is married to a different Mrs. Foster, and Mrs. Foster, the first Mrs. Foster, is married to a different Mr. Foster. And though I don’t know t...
Her name is Shelen, and I think she probably has a brother named Helen. He is Helen, a male with a female’s name, but life could be worse. He could be a liar, a thief, and immoral. In other words, Helen could be a politician. And without knowing an...
Since well before the Kung's engine noise first penetrated the forest, a conversation of sorts has been unfolding in this lonesome hollow. It is not a language like Russian or Chinese but it is a language nonetheless, and it is older than the forest....
The reason why we believe that change is possible is not because we are idealists but because we believe we have made it, so other people can make it as well.
It all begins, I maintain, with that powerful and underutilized thing called love. God's love for the individual is displayed by those people who reflect his love in their words and deeds. It ultimately gets understood and accepted by the child in po...
Power,' as the sociologist Nachman Ben-Yehuda writes, 'enters the picture in two ways': the first entails constructing and legitimizing the moral system itself; the second, in enforcing it. In this view, 'deviants are those who simply do not have eno...
Every person has one particular time in his life when he is more beautiful than he is ever going to be again. For some it is at seven, for others at seventeen or seventy, and as Laura Fleischman read out loud from Shakespeare, I remember thinking tha...
My study throngs with characters waiting to be written. Imaginary people, anxious for a life, who tug at my sleeve, crying, 'Me next! Go on! My turn!' I have to select. And once I have chosen, the others lie quiet for ten months or a year, until I co...
In this day and age it's really stupid to be stupid about financial matters. It doesn't do you any good to make money if you don't know what to do with it other than spend it.
That one American farmer can now feed himself and fifty-six other people may be, within the narrow view of the specialist, a triumph of technology; by no stretch of reason can it be considered a triumph of agriculture or of culture. It has been made ...
[Soetsu Yanagi's] main criticism of individual craftsmen and modern artists is that they are overproud of their individualism. I think I am right in saying Yanagi's belief was that the good artist of craftsman has no personal pride because in his sou...
Our sainted aunts prate of living for others while our rich uncles call us mollycoddles for not fighting for what we want. Murder is a patriotic act if you commit it in a uniform; it is the blackest sin if you kill someone while wearing a gray flanne...
Stop living within the confines of how others define you! You weren't created to live their life; you were created to live yours - so LIVE it! You can reignite that fire within and bring the passion back into your goals, dreams, ambitions, careers, a...
I do not see the value of separating humans into a body, soul and spirit. We don't do this with any other mammals, so why do we do it with ourselves? Thinking and fresh ideas arise naturally from the rhythm of one’s internal felt-sense. It is the p...
