I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one's head pointed toward the sun, one's feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sore...
Taken together, it’s almost a sure sign. The letters float off the page when you read, right? That’s because your mind is hardwired for ancient Greek. And the ADHD-you’re impulsive, can’t sit still in the classroom. That’s your battlefield ...
bitch power is the juice, the sweat, the blood that keeps pop music going. Rick James helped me understand the lesson of the eighth-grade dance: Bitch power rules the world. If the girls don't like the music, they sit down and stop the show. You gott...
I think that love is stronger than habits or circumstances. I think it is possible to keep yourself for someone for a long time, and still remember why you were waiting when she comes at last.... I would enter your sleep if I could, and guard you the...
Forrest Gander: "Maybe the best we can do is try to leave ourselves unprotected. To keep brushing off habits, how we see things and what we expect, as they crust around us. Brushing the green flies of the usual off the tablecloth. To pay attention.
And visitors say: how does such a big city exist? What keeps it going? Since it's got a river you can chew, where does the drinking water come from? What is, in fact, the basis of its civic economy? How come it, against all probability, ? Actually, v...
They play in the Meadow. The dancing girl with the dark hair and blue eyes. The boy with blond curls and gray eyes, struggling to keep up with her on his chubby toddler legs. It took five, ten, fifteen years for me to agree. But Peeta wanted them so ...
Really great moral teachers never do introduce new moralities: it is quacks and cranks who do that.... The real job of every moral teacher is to keep on bringing us back, time after time, to the old simple principles which we are all so anxious not t...
I turned my face up to his. I could hardly look at him the same way. I was crying without realizing I'd started. "You made a deal with Hank. You saved my life. Why would you do that for me?" "Angel," he murmured, clasping my face between his hands. "...
As a lake is the reciprocal of an island, so Agatha is the soup to my spoon. She makes me feel like an apple and a doctor, keeping myself away from myself, like the yellow stripes yelling at the black bars of a bee.
If I die, who’s going to take care of my shadow? Or will it return to the night, from whence it came? While I sleep at night I keep my shadow folded neatly in my underwear drawer.
Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls. The balls are called work, family, health, friends, and integrity. And you're keeping all of them in the air. But one day you finally come to understand that work is a rubber ball. If you d...
Natalie was buried in the family plot, next to a gravestone that already bore her parents' names. I know the wisdom, that no parents should see their child die, that such an event is like nature spun backward. But it's the only way to truly keep your...
The Jewish sages also tell us that God dances when His children defeat Him in argument, when they stand on their feet and use their minds. So questions like Anne's are worth asking. To ask them is a very fine kind of human behavior. If we keep demand...
Everything I’d fought for, every challenge, every victory … all of it was empty if anything happened to him. Without him, I wouldn’t have had the courage to become the person I was. Without him, I wouldn’t have realized what it truly was to l...
Many suburban legislators representing affluent school districts use terms such as "sinkhole" when opposing funding for Chicago's children. "We can't keep throwing money," said Governor Thompson in 1988, "into a black hole." The Chicago Tribune notes...
Smiling at me ruefully, Luka scratched the back of his head. “Yeah, I guess you can.” He sauntered toward the sliding doors. “I’ll be right outside if you need me. Call if you get dizzy.” “You’ll probably just hear a very loud thump.”...
I loved her [Gilberte]; I was sorry not to have had the time and the inspiration to insult her, to hurt her, to force her to keep some memory of me. I thought her so beautiful that I should have liked to be able to retrace my steps so as to shake my ...
Many of us have been burned by love and vowed to keep ourselves safe and not get pulled in again. But, inevitably, we do. Then we vow that this time, it's going to be different. This time, we're not going to make the same mistakes. And things seem wo...
The road of life is paved with daily successes, a great number of them penny and nickle triumphs. Sadly, these little feats are often seen as worthless―even failures―because we dream of greater gain. Our greed keeps us focused on a gleaming pot o...
For whatever reason, there are people we like and people we don't like. It's hard to say why, and often a difficult opinion to change. Luckily, there's no steadfast rule stating that we must like everyone. But to keep from disliking ourselves, we sho...
