I don’t understand people who eat Chinese food with chopsticks when the restaurant also offers silverware. As a tool, chopsticks are inferior to western utensils like the spoon and fork. So why use them? That’s like showing up to a math test with...
I just got a promotion today! I’m now the branch manager of a local tree. If my father could see me now, the second thing he’d tell me is how proud he is. The first thing he’d say would probably be, “Thank God I’m not blind anymore!
There was no sound, but she felt a movement, a shifting of the air in her room, the warmth of another presence. Isabel opened her eyes. He was there, at the foot of her bed, a single candle in his hand, dressed only in shirtsleeves, waistcoat, and br...
When Jed comes in and gives you that look where his forehead wrinkles up and his chin drops so low that his baggy eyes can't even look you square in your eyes, well, I guess you realize that it must be your turn to get out into the winter snow and ro...
I know what it's like to have secrets. Ones that are way traumatic. Ones that are so awful you can't tell anybody, even though you're dying to. So I'm not going to talk about this with anyone. It's the right thing to do. Karma and all.
People can only grow, stagnate, or regress. Which one are you doing? I’m both growing and stagnating, because I’m learning every day, so I’m growing, but since learning has become a habit and I do it all the time, I’m technically stagnating. ...
And I just think that if you believe in something and you want it so much and you're not hurting anyone else, you have to go for it. Which sometimes means taking a risk, even if it's scary. But the thing you want most to happen doesn't stand a chance...
I think you will agree that life's plans are not always tied up in neat little packages. Occasionally we find ourselves at unexpected crossroads with more than one opportunity from which to choose. Time itself is often the best indicator of which dec...
Sometimes I feel like I’m losing my mind,” she said with a hint of sadness. “You lost your mind a long time ago,” he said seriously. She looked at him with indignation. “That’s a compliment for anyone who knows the freedom and clarity of ...
As I have pointed out before, characters are not born like people, of woman; they are born of a situation, a sentence, a metaphor containing in a nutshell a basic human possibility that the author thinks no one else has discovered or said something e...
Once I heard Dantly tell Welton that the Native Americans used to call that particular part of the morning “between the wolf and the dog” because the sky is so deep blue and spooky or whatever that you can’t tell what’s what. Is that a wolf o...
Any discussion of money and success would be lacking if I did not state that money is neither good nor bad. In the hands of good people, money can build places of healing, worship, and learning. In the hands of bad people, money can create destructio...
I think the notion of dreaming in a time where we are told that it is foolish, futile or not useful is one of the most revolutionary things we can do. To have our lives determined by our dreams of a free world--instead of reactions to a state-imposed...
The laws of nature are not intelligent,’ I replied. ‘The force of gravity is not intelligent. Electricity is not intelligent. A savage looking at a television might assume that it’s a sapient being, but we—’ ‘A sapient being? Looking at a...
I did not matter what distant iron city had raised him. He had been made by Sorry-in-the-Vale, his bones as much a part of it as the valley and the woods. It was as if she had the whole town spread underneath her. Or the whole world, since right then...
The dog next-door had settled down, and the neighbourhood seemed stunned by this event occurring in our backyard. It was like it could sense it. It could sense some form of tragedy and helplessness being played out, and to tell you the truth, it all ...
You all know why we’re here. The time has come for action. To be sure we are prepared, Maeve and I will be heading out to scout conditions. We shouldn’t be gone more than a fortnight and in our absence, Fianna will be seeing to things. If we don�...
In my contact with people, I find that, as a rule, it is only the little, narrow people who live for themselves, who never read good books, who do not travel, who never open up their souls in a way to permit them to come into contact with other souls...
I can never see why people should be jealous. After all, youth isn't a matter of privilege, we all get the same share of it. Some people may be born at an easier time or be richer or more privileged than others, but that hasn't anything to do with be...
Fondling,' she saith, 'since I have hemm'd thee here Within the circuit of this ivory pale, I'll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer; Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or in dale: Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry, Stray lower, where the p...
I crossed my arms over my chest. "Are you lost, little girl? The elementary school's over on west campus." A pink flush spread over her cheeks. "Don't you ever touch me again. You screw with me, I'll screw you right back." Oh man, what an opening tha...