We can make room for more experiences of radiance, peace, and beauty; and when we do, they arrive. When we make an intention to experience peace, when we value it enough to make room for it and invite it into our busy lives, it arrives bearing gifts....
Despite all their flaws, zoos wake us up. They invite us to step outside our most basic assumptions. Offered for our contemplation, the animals remind us of nature’s impossibly varied schemes for survival, all the strategies that species rely upon ...
Magnus? Magnus Bane?” “That would be me.” The man blocking the doorway was as tall and thin as a rail, his hair a crown of dense back spikes. Clary guessed from the curse of his sleepy eyes and the gold tone of his evenly tanned skin that he wa...
In my experience, writers tend to be really good at the inside of their own heads and imaginary people, and a lot less good at the stuff going on outside, which means that quite often if you flirt with us we will completely fail to notice, leaving ev...
My first incident drinking alcohol occurred after a 2-month period in which I stole wine coolers and beers from my parents and hid them in different places around my room. I was 14 years old, in eighth grade. I invited a friend over one night after I...
There are two influences ever present in the world. One is constructive and elevating and comes from our Heavenly Father; the other is destructive and debasing and comes from Lucifer. We have our agency and make our own choice in life subject to thes...
There might, Gentlemen, be an impropriety in my taking notice, in this Address to you, of an anonymous production, but the manner in which that performance has been introduced to the army, the effect it was intended to have, together with some other ...
But can one be a blessing merely by being cheerful? Yes; moral beauty of any kind exerts a silent influence for good. It is like a sweet flower by the wayside, which has a benediction for everyone who passes by. A legend tells how one day in Galilee ...
Everything I know, everything I put in my fiction, will hurt someone somewhere as surely as it will comfort and enlighten someone else. What then is my responsibility? What am I to restrain? What am I to fear and alter--my own nakedness or the grief ...
The potential for loss of soul--to one degree or another--is the affliction of a society that as a collective has lost its sense of the holy, of a culture that values everything else above the spiritual. We live in such a spiritually impoverished cul...
[Marty is trying to woo Janet again, kissing the back of her neck and humming as she smokes a cigarette at the bar in the party for the Archbishop] Marty: Come on... all you have to do is turn around. Janet: I thought you liked it better like this. T...
Sherlock Holmes: Madam, this is a glorious hedgehog goulash. I can't remember ever having had better. Dr. John Watson: Do tell me, when was the last time you had a hedgehog goulash? Sherlock Holmes: I told you, Watson, I can't remember. Dr. John Wats...
Emma: Something to say? Adèle: I don't know. Emma: What? Adèle: I wanted to know, when was the first time you tasted... Emma: Tasted a sausage? Adèle: Tasted a girl. Emma: A girl? You mean kiss or taste? Adèle: [chuckles] Kiss. To start with, the...
... We are Nephilim; we fight our own battles." "That's not precisely true, is it?" said a velvety voice. It was Magnus Bane, wearing a long and glittering coat, multiple hoops in his ears, and a roguish expression. Clary had no idea where he'd come ...
I wore only black socks, because I had heard that white ones were the classic sign of the American tourist. Black ones though,- those'll fool 'em. I supposed I hoped the European locals' conversation would go something like this: PIERRE: Ha! Look at ...
I shall have to go. But-" and here Frodo looked hard at Sam- "if you really care about me, you will have to keep that DEAD secret. See? If you don't, if you even breathe a word of what you've heard here, then I hope Gandalf will turn you into a spott...
She remained in this attitude, clearly inviting him to touch her. Taking a position of advantage, he rested his right hand on her buttock. He considered a moment then raised his arm and brought his palm upon her, delivering a sharp spank. He felt the...
To the extent that we are trapped by the overvaluing, idealizing tendency, we are not free fully to celebrate the limited but real goods of creation. Idolatry by definition is not an accurate assessment of creaturely goods, but an overvaluing of them...
Why should the spread of ideas and people result in reforms that lower violence? There are several pathways. The most obvious is a debunking of ignorance and superstition. A connected and educated populace, at least in aggregate and over the long run...
To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements, or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. They are...
It is the voice of everyday people, rather than of a self-conscious 'artist', that we hear in Caedmon's Hymn, and in such texts as Deor's Lament (also known simply as Deor) or The Seafarer. These reflect ordinary human experience and are told in the ...
