The psychologist Charles Moser, for example, pointed out that those inclined to divide the "sane" from the "insane" in terms of frequency of sex and intensity of desires overlook the possibility that sex itself may be the most meaningful part of a pe...
The difficulty lay with the mind accommodating itself to the notion of the plane, with all its weight, defying gravity, staying aloft. She understood the aerodynamics of flight, could comprehend the laws of physics that made flight possible, but her ...
Schools and universities are (as in a body) the noble and vital parts, which being vigorous and sound send good blood and active spirits into the veins and arteries, which cause health and strength; or, if feeble or ill-affected, corrupt all the vita...
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...
Dreaming is not only an act of communication; it is also an aesthetic activity, a game of the imagination, a game that is a value in itself. Our dreams prove that to imagine - to dream about things that have not happened - is among mankind’s deepes...
With the arrival of electric technology, man has extended, or set outside himself, a live model of the central nervous system itself. To the degree that this is so, it is a development that suggests a desperate suicidal autoamputation, as if the cent...
To my mind the defining characteristic of our era is spin, everything tailored to vanishing point by market research, brands and bands manufactured to precise specifications; we are so used to things transmuting into whatever we would like them to be...
Wolsey always said that the making of a treaty is the treaty. It doesn't matter what the terms are, just that there are terms. It's the goodwill that matters. When that runs out, the treaty is broken, whatever the terms say. It is the processions tha...
A truly good book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild-flower discovered on the prairies of the West or in the jungles of the East. Genius is a light which makes the darkness visible, like the lig...
Once, Turner had himself lashed to the mast of a ship for several hours, during a furious storm, so that he could later paint the storm. Obviously, it was not the storm itself that Turner intended to paint. What he intended to paint was a representat...
Mum had a Charles-and-Diana wedding mug that had survived longer than the marriage itself. Mum had worshipped Princess Di and frequently lamented her passing. "Gone," she would say, shaking her head in disbelief. "Just like that. All that exercise fo...
Each man lives for himself, uses his freedom to achieve his personal goals, and feels with his whole being that right now he can or cannot do such-and-such an action; but as soon as he does it, this action, committed at a certain moment in time, beco...
But in the machine of today we forget that motors are whirring: the motor, finally, has come to fulfill its function, which is to whirr as a heart beats - and we give no thought to the beating of our heart. Thus, precisely because it is perfect the m...
I can't take this pain away for her. I can't make it better. It's all I want to do - make it better - make her feel better, but I understand grief. It's a bitch. Grief has to work itself out. It can either consume you or you can move on and at this p...
Being sick is itself a kind of ressentiment. — Against this the invalid has only one great means of cure — I call it Russian fatalism, that fatalism without rebellion with which a Russian soldier for whom the campaign has become too much at last ...
That I should just dive in and let my world fall apart and rebuild itself. That if I can embrace change, I can embrace death, and that is the secret to liberation.
Not counting 'Small Steps,' I think 'Holes' is my best book, in terms of plot, and setting, and the way the story revealed itself. It hasn't changed my life, other than that I have more money than I did before I wrote it. I'm still too close to 'Smal...
Time plays like an accordion in the way it can stretch out and compress itself in a thousand melodic ways. Months on end may pass blindingly in a quick series of chords, open-shut, together-apart; and then a single melancholy week may seem like a yea...
Why were things funny? Was God laughing at us? Or was laughter the dispensation of God? Maybe laughter itself was Godlike. When we laugh, we rise above pain. We rise above indignity. We even rise above incredulity. We "get it." Maybe in the way God "...
Lately I've been falling asleep listening to 'Common One' by Van Morrison, specifically the song 'Summertime in England.' It's 15 minutes long, so to make it through the entire song is a real task unto itself, but Van has that emotional payoff that m...
Becoming conscious and aware is a journey itself, and we all struggle in that journey we call life. Instead of judging one another, help each other, not by convincing them of your truth but through letting them think for themselves by spreading knowl...
