What is the bottom line for the animal/human hierarchy? I think it is at the animate/inanimate line, and Carol Adams and others are close to it: we eat them. This is what humans want from animals and largely why and how they are most harmed. We make ...
It is a fundamental truth that the responsibilities of motherhood cannot be successfully delegated. No, not to day-care centers, not to schools, not to nurseries, not to babysitters. We become enamored with men’s theories such as the idea of presch...
If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity...
Why do many believers insist on repeatedly pointing to the crimes of 20th century dictators who led officially atheistic societies as some sort of evidence of their god's existence? It makes no sense. If the rivers of blood on Stalin's hands and Mao'...
Mathematics is not a book confined within a cover and bound between brazen clasps, whose contents it need only patience to ransack; it is not a mine, whose treasures may take long to reduce to possessions, but which fill only a limited number of vein...
If you describe yourself as "Atheist," some people will say, "Don't you mean 'Agnostic'?" I have to reply that I really do mean Atheist. I really do not believe that there is a god - in fact I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference...
It’s destiny; the stars have aligned perfectly to bring us together as friends. You cannot argue with what’s meant to be, once the stars have spoken, it is absolute,” he uttered, all smug and knowing. Shocked that he used the word destiny, I co...
The human soul is complex. So is Nature (or life, if you prefer). Creating a perfect interface between the two results in a balance that one can recognize in an individual as a state of grace. This kind of resulting harmony is just like the dynamic i...
Conservatives and those on the right are usually willing to settle for thinking themselves correct on political issues; those on the left have always needed to feel not so much that they are correct but that they are also good. Disagree with someone ...
Butterfly?" Will said. "Why Butterfly?" "I believe it's a term of great respect," Selethen said gravely. He was very obviously not laughing. Too obviously, Will thought. "It's all right for you," he said. "They called you 'Hawk.' Hawk is an excellent...
We have a bad habit of seeing books as sort of cheaply made movies where the words do nothing but create visual narratives in our heads. So too often what passes for literary criticism is "I couldn't picture that guy", or "I liked that part", or "thi...
Amon Goeth: I would like so much to reach out to you and touch you in your loneliness. What would it be like, I wonder? What would be wrong with that? I realize that you are not a person in the strictest sense of the word, but, um, maybe you're right...
Dean: I don't know, I just feel like I should just stop thinking about it, you know, but I can't. Maybe I've seen too many movies, you know, love at first sight. What do you think about love at first sight? You think you can love somebody just by loo...
Mason: I finally figured it out. It's like when they realized it was gonna be too expensive to actually build cyborgs and robots. I mean, the costs of that were impossible. They decided to just let humans turn themselves into robots. That's what's go...
Ida 'Big Momma' Pollitt: I'm talking in Big Daddy's languge now. I'm his wife, not his widow. I'm still his wif! Gooper Pollitt: What we've got here... Mae Pollitt: What Gooper's saying is just a plan, a basis. Ida 'Big Momma' Pollitt: I'll tell you ...
Alfred: If you're seriously considering going back out there, you should hear the rumors surrounding Bane. Bruce Wayne: I'm all ears. Alfred: There is a prison in a more ancient part of the world, a pit where men are thrown to suffer and die. But som...
Clementine: Joely? Joel: Yeah Tangerine? Clementine: Am I ugly? Joel: Uh-uh. Clementine: When I was a kid, I thought I was. I can't believe I'm crying already. Sometimes I think people don't understand how lonely it is to be a kid, like you don't mat...
Door Gunner: Git some! Git some! Git some, yeah, yeah, yeah! Anyone who runs, is a VC. Anyone who stands still, is a well-disciplined VC! You guys oughta do a story about me sometime! Private Joker: Why should we do a story about you? Door Gunner: 'C...
Tevye: [in song] Do you love me? Golde: [speaking] I'm your wife! Tevye: [speaking] I know! [in song] Tevye: But do you love me? Golde: [singing] Do I love him? For twenty-five years I've lived with him, fought with him, starved with him. Twenty-five...
Bartlett: Hilts, how do you breathe? Hilts: Oh, we got a steel rod with hinges on it. We'll shove it up and make air holes as we go along. [to Ramsey] Hilts: G'night, sir. [Walks out] MacDonald: Why didn't anyone think of that before? It's so stupid,...
Lionel McCready: [about Helene] She's at the Fillmore all the time. Patrick Kenzie: She's at the Fillmore lounge? Lionel McCready: Yeah, she drinks every day. She's got the gene, you know? The disease. Our parents had it too. Patrick Kenzie: She use ...
