Meeting writers is always so disappointing. I got over wanting to meet live writers quite a long time ago. There is this terrific book that has changed your life, and then you meet the author, and he has shifty eyes and funny shoes and he won't talk ...
Our deepest fear," the passage goes, "is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fa...
For those of us who take literature very seriously, picking up a work of fiction is the start of an adventure comparable in anticipatory excitement to what I imagine is felt by an athlete warming up for a competition, a mountain climber preparing for...
Not being assaulted is not a privilege to be earned through the judicious application of personal safety strategies. A woman should be able to walk down the street at 4 in the morning in nothing but her socks, blind drunk, without being assaulted, an...
What sticks with me now is that this man said he needed to get to a hospital. He probably needed to reach his destination more than anyone else on the bus, yet he lacked the capacity to ride without getting kicked off. Maybe he reached the hospital e...
You know you're a mom when you open the door to the dishwasher mid-cycle and think, 'This is the closest I'm going to get to a spa treatment till next Mother's Day.'" "Joining the words 'Lose Weight, Effortlessly!' in the same sentence may be a form ...
The defendant removed his gloves and started toward the victim. Mr. Farley, still teasing, said: “Ooo, he's taking his gloves off.” The defendant then pulled a knife from his pocket and stabbed the victim in the neck. He also stabbed Mr. Farley i...
We know how ninety-nine percent of the universe works," he told Carter shortly after they met, "and that's the clockworks, that's what we build with. But the other one percent makes the clockworks wind down. That's inertia. No one knows how that work...
A part of my appreciation for the good which moments bring has come from awareness and recognition. But it has also come from a correspnding sadness which arises from their passing. When something that can never quite be reenacted comes to an end (an...
Abominations. He did not say the last word aloud, but she felt something like pain echo through him, pity. “You sound like you know a lot about this kind of thing?” “You could say I have first hand experience.” Valdagerion was looking up at t...
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 "...
Sometimes, laughing like a lunatic can be the best solution. Or crying loudly into a pillow. But don't regret anything. Always tell yourself "I. Regret. Nothing." because really, no matter how sucky, or crappy your life gets, you really shouldn't reg...
In deriving a body from the water type I intend to express that to this body, considered as an oxide, there corresponds a chloride, a bromide, a sulphide, a nitride, etc., susceptible of double compositions, or resulting from double decompositions, a...
I have attempted to give you a glimpse... of what there may be of soul in chemistry. But it may have been in vain. Perchance the chemist is already damned and the guardian of the pearly gates had decreed that of all the black arts, chemistry is the b...
We come together as a community — in our sitting room, in sacred space or in a coffee shop. We share our joy and pain, our surprises and disappointments, successes and failures and we try to make some sense of it all. We listen to find some way to ...
I was impressed by the scene in Apollo 13 where the astronauts request confirmation of their calculations and several people at Mission Control dive for their slide rules. For several months after that, my standard response to statements like "We mus...
Precisely this one, which I had intended to be published anonymously so that it could never build any reputation on the part of the author, did become a success.... Don't aim at success - the more you aim and make it a target, the more you are going ...
Hang you, DeVere! She's a close friend, nothing more." He furrowed his brow once again. "Though I do fear of late that she entertains some...expectations." "You think the young widow may aspire to quite another surrogate role? They all do, ol' chap. ...
So whom does God wrong in commanding the destruction of the Canaanites? Not the Canaanite adults, for they were corrupt and deserving of judgment. Not the children, for they inherit eternal life. So who is wronged? Ironically, I think the most diffic...
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air; And like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great glove i...
I do believe you think what now you speak, But what we do determine oft we break. Purpose is but the slave to memory, Of violent birth, but poor validity, Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree, But fall, unshaken, when they mellow be. Most...
