The philosopher Odo Marquard has noted a correlation in the German language between the word zwei, which means 'two,' and the word zweifel, which means 'doubt' - suggesting that two of anything brings the automatic possibility of uncertainty to our l...
Lots of people wrote to the magazine to say that Marilyn vos Savant was wrong, even when she explained very carefully why she was right. Of the letters she got about the problem, 92% said that she was wrong and lots of these were from mathematicians ...
Always too eager for the future, we Pick up bad habits of expectancy. Something is always approaching; every day we say, Watching from a bluff the tiny, clear, Sparkling armada of promises draw near. How slow they are! And how much time they waste, R...
I want you both." I said quietly, not caring that my cheeks had grown warmer. "I have for a while." "If we try this—" Tyler took a deep breath. "And it doesn't feel right—" "We'll stop." Kacey promised as he slid his hand beneath my halter neck a...
What, you didn’t pack your lunch?” Ty asked sarcastically as he shifted around in the seat and wedged himself against the door. He kicked a foot up and propped it on the console between the two front seats. “Sure, in my SpongeBob SquarePants lu...
Boy, it began to rain like a bastard. In buckets, I swear to God. All the parents and mothers and everybody went over and stood right under the roof of the carrousel, so they wouldn't get soaked to the skin or anything, but I stuck around on the benc...
A beam or pillar can be used to batter down a city wall, but it is no good for stopping up a little hole - this refers to a difference in function. Thoroughbreds like Qiji and Hualiu could gallop a thousand li in one day, but when it came to catching...
How does she do it? She makes it sound like she is so cut up to be giving them this information, and it's all just bumph out of her head. She never told them ANYTHING. I don't think she's given them the right name of any airfield in Britain except Ma...
What's strange about the whole thing is that although it's riddled with nonsense, altogether it's true - Julie's told our story, mine and hers, our friendship, so truthfully. It is us. We even had the same dream at the same time. How could we have ha...
Smokers always waxed poetic about the ritual of it, how a large part of the satisfaction was packing the box and pulling the foil wrapper and plucking an aromatic stick. They claimed they loved the lighting, the ashing, the feeling of being able to h...
Ever since people first existed, they have been doing all the things we label "codependent." They have worried themselves sick about other people. They have tried to help in ways that didn't help. They have said yes when they meant no. They have trie...
I needed to talk to my dad. My dad who had been to war, who had seen its horrors, who suffered from its nightmares, my dad who was a good man, the best man I’d ever known, who, along with my uncle, I wanted to honor by teaching military kids—my d...
Look at yourself! You're a priest. You know damn well that if I were setting out to make a girl at this moment instead of young Paolo, you'd take an entirely different view. You'd disapprove, sure! You'd read me a lecture on fornication and all the r...
God damn it, don’t you do this. You have no idea how badly I want you right now. I’d love nothing more than to bury myself inside you, and feel you lose yourself around me as you scream my name; the very idea of fucking the woman I love, , after ...
She didn't understand that. "How can anyone be afraid of love?" "How can they not?" His face was completely aghast. "When you love someone... truly love them, friend or lover, you lay your heart open to them. You give them a part of yourself that you...
That’s the key, you know, confidence. I know for a fact that if you genuinely like your body, so can others. It doesn’t really matter if it’s short, tall, fat or thin, it just matters that you can find some things to like about it. Even if that...
People who have a religion should be glad, for not everyone has the gift of believing in heavenly things. You don't necessarily even have to be afraid of punishment after death; purgatory, hell, and heaven are things that a lot of people can't accept...
We're not going to make it," I said. The words caught in my throat, choking me. What was it Leslie had said to me when we were discussing Shannon's and Antoinetta's disappearance? 'You're beginning to sound like one of the characters in your books, A...
The argument that there are just wars often rests on the social system of the nation engaging in war. It is supposed that if a ‘liberal’ state is at war with a ‘totalitarian’ state, then the war is justified. The beneficent nature of a govern...
Like so many other things in the previous year, my politics had also been retooled by maternity. I began to suspect that modern feminism had gotten it at least partly wrong. . . . In devaluing the home and the vast range of domestic work--childrearin...
We're going to investigate," Fireheart meowed. "We can't decide how to get rid of these dogs until we know exactly what we have to face. We're not going to attack them, not yet-have you got that, Cloudtail?" Cloudtail's blue eyes burned into his, and...
