I was dying to have a cat. But they wouldn't let me. My mother hated them. Not once in my life have I managed to get something I really wanted. Not once. Can you believe it? You can't understand what it's like to live like that. When you get used to ...
At times it may seem as though you and your past are one. Sometimes we fail to differentiate between what has happened to us and who we are today. If you have a hard time getting beyond that damaging mind-set let me encourage you right now. You are n...
She ate it and cried. Soon, he put the melting ice cream away. "Shura," Tatiana whispered, "darling, forget what should have been. Remember all that was." "Tatiasha, babe," Alexander whispered, coming back to bed to be covered, "my one and only wife,...
The educated man pictures a horde of submen, wanting only a day's liberty to loot his house, burn his books, and set him to work minding a machine or sweeping out a lavatory. 'Anything,' he thinks, 'any injustice, sooner than let that mob loose.' He ...
What Hamlet suffers from is a lack of zombies. Let us say Rosencrantz and Guildenstern show up—Ho-HO! Now you’ve got something that stirs the, um, something that stirs things that are stirrable. BOOM! A pack of ravenous flesh-eaters breaks open t...
We have undoubtedly achieved Pakistan, and that too without bloody war and practically peacefully, by moral and intellectual force, and with the power of the pen, which is no less mighty than that of the sword and so our righteous cause has triumphed...
I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English―it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don't let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kil...
I had forgotten what fiction was to me as a boy, forgotten what it was like in the library: fiction was an escape from the intolerable, a doorway into impossibly hospitable worlds where things had rules and could be understood; stories had been a way...
I will write in words of fire. I will write them on your skin. I will write about desire. Write beginnings, write of sin. You’re the book I love the best, your skin only holds my truth, you will be a palimpsest lines of age rewriting youth. You wil...
There’s a beautiful poem at the beginning of a collection of books we call the Bible. In that poem, it is written: "Then God said, ‘Let us make man.’” God then recognized that it was not good for man to be alone. We can all agree on that one,...
No innocence can shield a man from the calumnies of the wicked. [...] As a shadow follows its substance, so envy pursues goodness. It is only at the tree laden with fruit that men throw stones. If we would live without being slandered we must wait un...
If, as a culture, we don’t bear witness to grief, the burden of loss is placed entirely upon the bereaved, while the rest of us avert our eyes and wait for those in mourning to stop being sad, to let go, to move on, to cheer up. And if they don’t...
Think of the self that God has given as an acorn. It is a marvelous little thing, a perfect shape, perfectly designed for its purpose, perfectly functional. Think of the grand glory of an oak tree. God’s intention when He made the acorn was the oak...
That's what real love amounts to - letting a person be what he really is. Most people love you for who you pretend to be. To keep their love, you keep pretending - performing. You get to love your pretence. It's true, we're locked in an image, an act...
Nurse Noakes: You are going to be sorry in ways you cannot even imagine. Mr. Meeks: [shrieks to draw attention of the crowd in the pub] Are there no true Scotsmen in the house? Those there English gerrunts are trampling all over my God-given rights! ...
Sister James: How can you be so sure that he is lying? Sister Aloysius Beauvier: Experience. Sister James: You just don't like him! You don't like it that he uses a ballpoint pen. You don't like it that he takes 3 lumps of sugar in his tea. You don't...
Tyler Durden: Fuck damnation, man! Fuck redemption! We are God's unwanted children? So be it! Narrator: OK. Give me some water! Tyler Durden: Listen, you can run water over your hand and make it worse or... [shouts] Tyler Durden: look at me... or you...
Motorcycle Cop Bobbit: [Highway Patrolman, Prendergast, and Car Driver are talking in gridlocked traffic] Gentlemen, I'm going to have to ask you to both return to your vehicles. Car Driver: But what about the car? Motorcycle Cop Bobbit: I'm going to...
Shifu: When you focus on kung fu, when you concentrate... you stink. [Po frowns] Shifu: But perhaps that is my fault. I cannot train you the way I have trained the Five. I now see that the way to get through to you, is with this. [pulls out a bowl of...
Young Simba: Dad? Mufasa: Hmm? Young Simba: We're pals, right? Mufasa: Right. Young Simba: And we'll always be together, right? Mufasa: Simba, let me tell you something my father told me. Look at the stars. The great kings of the past look down on us...
Mushu: Okay, let me see what you got. Mushu: [reading Cri-Kee's note] "From General Li. Dear Son, we're waiting for the Huns at the pass. It would mean a lot if you'd come and back us up." Hmm, that's great, except you forgot, "And since we're out of...