Remember: Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations. Plot is observed after the fact rather than before. It cannot precede action. It is the chart that remains when an a...
I spoke of the tragic illusion of perpetuity, but, no, my friends, it is a comic one. The ludicrous plot in which we are all trapped. The ancient Greeks referred to plot as mythos, attributing the random drift of human affairs to some sort of unknowa...
Still, no one finally knows what a poet is supposed either to be or to do. Especially in this country, one takes on the job—because all that one does in America is considered a "job"—with no clear sense as to what is required or where one will ul...
It's been suggested that if the super-naturalists really had the powers they claim, they'd win the lottery every week. I prefer to point out that they could also win a Nobel Prize for discovering fundamental physical forces hitherto unknown to scienc...
I am dead because I lack desire, I lack desire because I think I possess. I think I possess because I do not try to give. In trying to give, you see that you have nothing;Seeing that you have nothing, you try to give of yourself; Trying to give of yo...
A Spiritual Discipline is an intentionally directed action which places us in a position to receive from God the power to do what we cannot accomplish on our own.... The deep waters of God's life are already flowing. We simply learn the strokes that ...
Mithorden: 'He was brilliant, yes, but ready to laugh at himself when he made mistakes. You may not believe it, but he made mistakes often.' Luthiel: 'Why?' She choked around her tears. Mithorden: 'Because he tried to do great things. Anyone can succ...
As a writer, you must truly possess a love for words." "Yes, that's right," I agreed. "I've noticed that some authors favor particular words, making frequent use of them. Do you have a favorite?" I nodded assuredly and shared my answer. "BECAUSE." My...
If only you would kiss me. Press your lips to mine like a searing iron. Wrap me in your arms as if you were a monarch claiming a kingdom. Hold me close until I warm through to the core. Do this and I promise to melt into you, no longer a cold and fro...
I am beautiful in my own right. Not in vain, proud way but in the way God made me. My beauty isn't connected to the amount of boys that look at me. I do not become less beautiful because no boys flirt with me. No my beauty is not skin deep. My beauty...
I know where I came from—but where did all you zombies come from? I felt a headache coming on, but a headache powder is one thing I do not take. I did once—and you all went away. So I crawled into bed and whistled out the light. You aren’t real...
The debacle in Iraq has reinforced the realist dictum, disparaged by idealists in the 1990s, that the legacies of geography, history and culture really do set limits on what can be accomplished in any given place. But the experience in the Balkans re...
Solamon Energy Corp (SSL), "The Company", is neither offering nor has offered any shares for sale to the general public IPO and has not engaged any agents to do so, as shares can only be traded through GXG Markets by authorized brokers. Potential inv...
If you love another person, you have to become a no-self, a nothing. When you love, you have to become a nobody. When you are a nobody, love happens. If you remain somebody, love never happens. One becomes afraid of love, because love opens the inner...
An authentic and genuine life grows like a sturdy tree. And like a tree, it grows slowly. Every time you make a different and better decision, it grows a little. Every time you choose to do the right thing, even when nobody would find out otherwise, ...
In truth I suspect that merely slowing down is not a very satisfying answer. What I need has less to do with my pace of life than my peace of life. At any speed, I crave a deep and lasting inner peace. And if it's solace I'm after, I don't need to pa...
To say that I wished I wasn't there would be a ludicrous understatement, but I'd only ever had the illusion of choice: We have to do this, Hank had said. It's for Ellis. To refuse would have been an act of calculated cruelty. And so, because of my hu...
When you love someone, truly love them, you lay your heart open to them. You give them a part of yourself that you give to no one else, and you let them inside a part of you that only they can hurt-you literally hand them the razor with a map of wher...
Do any of us, except in our dreams, truly expect to be reunited with our hearts' deepest loves, even when they leave us only for minutes, and on the most mundane of errands? No, not at all. Each time they go from our sight we in our secret hearts cou...
We must not falter nor weary in well-doing. We must lengthen our stride. Not only is our own eternal welfare at stake, but also the eternal welfare of many of our brothers and sisters who are not now members of this, the true Church. I thrill to the ...
a shift in thinking’ toward someone who has wronged you, ‘such that your desire to harm that person has decreased and your desire to do him good (or to benefit your relationship) has increased.’ Forgiveness, at a minimum, is a decision to let g...