I laugh, and it’s laughter, not light, that casts out the darkness building within me, that reminds me I am still alive, even in this strange place where everything I’ve ever known is coming apart. I know some things—I know that I’m not alone...
That's what yer little sister said,' said Hagrid, nodding at Ron. Met her jus' yesterday.' Hagrid looked sideways at Harry, his beard twitching. 'Said she was jus' lookin' round the grounds, but I reckon she was hopin' she might run inter someone els...
Mr. Jamrach led me through the lobby and into the menagerie. The first was a parrot room, a fearsome screaming place of mad round eyes, crimson breasts that beat against bars, wings that flapped against their neighbours, blood red, royal blue, gypsy ...
she was flighty and poor, a French studies major who quoted Simone de Beauvoir. She wiped her runny nose on her coat sleeve when it was snowing, stuck her head out of car windows the way dogs do, the wind fireworking her hair. That woman was gone now...
To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else's heart was wild with the breeze stirre...
Isn't God the one who urges us to "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord"? Why do we always think that means singing? Seems to me the most obvious joyful sound on earth is laughter... I've seen folks quote verses like "Rejoice in the Lord always" while t...
That was when it was all made painfully clear to me. When you are a child, there is joy. There is laughter. And most of all, there is trust. Trust in your fellows. When you are an adult...then comes suspicion, hatred, and fear. If children ran the wo...
Let me alone," said Mildred "Let alone!" He almost cried out with laughter. "Letting you alone is easy, but how can I leave alone? That's what's wrong. We need to be let alone. We need to be upset and stirred and bothered, once in a while, anyway. No...
When he heard laughter, before he could think or feel anything, his heart would already be beating like he’d sprinted twenty yards. As the beating slowly normalized he’d think of how his heart, unlike him, was safely contained, away from the worl...
Ah, Antonio, it IS the noblest sport that ever was. I would give a year of my life to see it. Is the bull always killed?" "Yes. Sometimes a bull is timid, finding himself in so strange a place, and he stands trembling, or tries to retreat. Then ev...
Cops and Robbers in 1965 England was still a kind of Ealing comedy: crimes rarely involved firearms. The denizens of F-wing were losers in a game they had been playing against the cops. In queues for exercise, the constant questions were 'What you in...
I think maybe bad things seem worse when people are alone. When they can turn that bad thought over and over in their head, polishing it like a stone, until it shines dark and black. Maybe the key to making things better is being with other people. L...
Red Rover, Red Rover, send Ardor right over," Eliza said. They laughed. The asteroid was a little bigger now, brighter, and still they went on laughing. Laughing in the face of what they couldn't predict or change or control. Would it be fire and bri...
The first and last weakness of his life, before him again. For a moment he felt himself blinded by his own memories; his own remembrances of the wits and wiles of Marian Halcombe that would steal into his thoughts; the sound of her laughter at his ou...
This LIFE is NOT about a BIG house, VALUABLE things, a FULL bank account or a POWERFUL status. It’s about having a BIG open mind and heart that respects and accepts differences. It’s about VALUING your family, friends & being grateful for the lit...
For I do not believe God means us thus to divide life into half halves - to wear a grave face on Sunday, and to think it out-of-place to even so much as mention Him on a weekday. Do you think he cares to see only kneeling figures, and to hear only to...
You had me at Hello You had me at hello, but now it’s time to say goodbye. Whilst my lungs draw breath and my heart beats a steady beat, beside me, for you there will always be a seat. You my special friend brought laughter and smiles that knew no ...
Nonsense. Everyone knows Canadians are a peaceful people.” He was laughing now. “Tell that to the White House circa 1812,” I told him. “Oh? Why?” “Because that’s the year the peace-loving Canadians burned it to the ground.” Dominick g...
Do you remember the sight we saw, my soul, that soft summer morning round a turning in the path, the disgusting carcass on a bed scattered with stones, its legs in the air like a woman in need burning its wedding poisons like a fountain with its rhyt...
Life is an endless attempt to word the unwordable, to make what cannot be touched walk on the ground, to embody what can never be fit inside a single lifetime. We see reflections of ourselves in sunrises, hear our perfection in thunderstorms and babi...
Stoick: Well, I can show my face in public again! If someone told me that in a few short weeks, Hiccup would go from, well, being, uh... *Hiccup*, to placing first in dragon training? Well, I would have tied him to a mast and shipped him off, for fea...