In the South American rainforest, there is a tribe called the Desana, who see the world as a fixed quantity of energy that flows between all creatures. Every birth must therefore engender a death, and every death brings forth another birth. This way,...
If we could celebrate our birthday on any day of the year, would you choose the one you were born on? I’d be a fool and a liar if I told you I didn’t want to celebrate my birthday on April 1st. And you know I’m no liar.
Pain has an odd way of expressing itself in the acts of business. No matter how many setbacks a leader might experience, there always seems to be a new opaque watermark of endurance testing, invisibly triggered for erratic combustion in each compound...
Seemed to me a phone was an impersonal instrument. If it like it, it let your personality go through its wires. If it didn't to, it just drained your personality away until what slipped through at the other end was some cold fish of a voice, all stee...
While the burning fish is tracing his arc near the cypress, beneath the highest blue of all, and the blind boy flies away in the white stone, and the ivory poem of the green cicada beats and reverberates in the elm, let us give honor to the Lord— t...
Kindly permit me to tell you, sir, that I hate you. I hate you and your child, as I hate the life of which you are the representative: cheap, ridiculous, but yet triumphant life, the everlasting antipodes and deadly enemy of beauty. I cannot say I de...
Some people say he engineered his own arrest to gain an insight into modern methods of policing for a thriller he had planned. But you know what happens to artistic rats in prison: they have their rectums stretched, and not by overindulgence in Miche...
Osama, baah!" Bashir roared. "Osama is not a product of Pakistan or Afghanistan. He is a creation of America. Thanks to America, Osama is in every home. As a military man, I know you can never fight and win against someone who can shoot at you once a...
[Knowing God]... call it love, yes, only that can sound too emotional, or call it faith, and that can sound too cerebral. And what is it? Both, and neither... [its] the decision to be faithful, the patient refusal of easy gratifications... of Jesus' ...
But when the wizard is onstage as the main character, you have to adopt what I call the Jack Vance Rule. I call it this because Jack Vance is the first author successfully and adroitly to have applied this rule in his The Dying Earth. The Jack Vance ...
I move closer to the glass, as close as I can get to it, begging her, begging Lily, begging Grace, begging all of them to tell me what's left, to just tell me, while the girl pushes against the window, turns her tiny hands into tiny fists, begging me...
Then he asked my age and I asked his. That's the tradition in China. If we know each other's ages we can understand each other's past. We Chinese have been collective for so long, personal histories are not worth mentioning. Therefore as soon as Xiao...
I don't know where this pressure came from. I can't blame my parents because it has always felt internal. Like any other parent, my mother celebrated the A grades and the less-than-A grades she felt there was no need to tell anybody about. But not ac...
BE REAL Bring it on- And let truth be my existence. Value my life- And tell me like it is. Bark at me when I'm wrong- And hug me when I'm right. Praise me if I succeed- And tell me if I fail. Laugh at me if you think I'm funny- And wink at me if you ...
During Basic, sometimes you're so tired you can't even get up to piss. You're pushed beyond whatever limits you had set for yourself. You realize that your body can do things that you never imagined. But there are times when you don't think you can g...
The amazing thing is that every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust...
Hey, if you're going to say what I think you're going to say…wait, are you going to say it?” he asked, smiling down at me. “Yes, yes I think so.” I grinned shyly back. “Well, then I think we should say it at the same time, yes?” he sugges...
I knew that I was in better shape than she was because I was the one who pushed for the split. Still, even a year later I was still very vulnerable to her actions. If I saw her at the supermarket, or someone brought her name up, or if she called abou...
I vowed that I would never tell anyone of my shame. They say that when you kept a secret, it eats you up inside, but I felt it was better that way. I wanted to appear strong in front of my children and my family. I didn't want anybody to know. And I ...
You are strong, self-reliant, entirely able to take care of yourself and of me... You are fearless, courageous; you saved my life, nursed me back to health, hunted for my food, provided for my comfort. You don't need me. Yet you make me want to prote...
I've a need for knowing what potion you mixed with these, lass." The rich baritone of his voice washed over her with a mesmerizing quality. She liked the sound. A lot. 'Twas deep and majestic, the kind of voice a body would never tire of hearing.... ...
