Enlightenment, or Nirvana, is nothing other than the state beyond all obstacles, in the same way that from the peak of a very high mountain one always sees the sun. Nirvana is not a paradise or some special place of happiness, but is in fact the cond...
I continued to move my fingers across his skin exactly as I had before, but I needed to make a decision. I had reached for him, but I could back out of it by trailing my fingers down his arm and settling my hand in his, like I wanted us to be friends...
The whole right side of his face was smashed in, concave forehead and crushed cheekbone and one eye bugging precariously from a broken socket. He was purplish-black, and dirty white: Maggots seethed from every pore and crawled across him in excited w...
Sorry Johnny." "Sorry for what " "For shouting at you. It's just that when I think about the future I keep panicking. It's like falling from the top of the stairs in the dark not knowing where I'll end up." He put his arm around my shoulders. "I unde...
It's all messed up," she said. "What is?" he asked quietly from behind her. "Us." "We're doing okay." "I didn't set out to trap you or anything." Keith had accused her of that a hundred times. "I don't feel trapped." "Why?" "I'm a simple guy. I have ...
Yeah, well," I say, "I left Abnegation because I wasn't selfless enough, no matter how hard I tried to be." "That's not entirely true." He smiles at me. "That girl who let someone throw knives at her to spare a friend, who hit my dad with a belt to p...
After finishing my breakfast, I puttered around for the next hour and tried not to think about Daniel. I glared at the chair in the middle of the back room as if he were still perched in it, shirtless with that shit-eating grin plastered across his g...
Have you ever seen Russian nesting dolls?” Thrown by the questions, she opened her eyes. Why would he suddenly speak about a child’s toy? “I own a few of them.” “Then you must understand that undressing you is like playing with one of those...
You see, that's the thing with you detrus," Chase began in a contemplative tone. "Your bodies are abominations. If I severed your arms--" Lothaire yawned loudly. "--you'd merely regenerate from the injury. You might experience pain, but you wouldn't ...
Wouldn't be surprising. Most immortal females behave like they're in heat." Her brows rose. "You are the one who taught me about pleasure." ... "And now in another lifetime, you ridicule me for missing it? Come on, Chase. Take me to where you live. S...
Reading is merely a surrogate for thinking for yourself; it means letting someone else direct your thoughts. Many books, moreover, serve merely to show how many ways there are of being wrong, and how far astray you yourself would go if you followed t...
She had been lying there, facedown in the water long before the tide had turned at 3.04 that morning. Her eyes were staring into the river, her blonde hair first fanning out, then drawing back under her head with the wash of the water, like a pulsati...
I hate to go mincing through life, afraid to take a single long step for fear somebody is watching. I want to "wave my wild tail and walk by my wild lone." There wasn't a bit of real harm in my opening that window and talking to Perry. There wasn't e...
There was one sure way to avoid being assigned an impromptu chore in our house - be it taking out the trash or cleaning your room - and that was to have your face buried in a book. Like churches during the Middle Ages, books conferred instant sanctua...
Do I feel ancient to you now?" he murmered. "Too different from the person you loved before you knew this?" Her eyes were already glowing green, and her full lips parted. "No, you don't feel too ancient." Her voice was husky. "Or too different. You f...
I am inclined to trust you. You shouldn’t be like that with another man, not ever; but I can’t help it. I felt it strongly from the instant I heard your voice; and though I thought momentarily that it would falter, it didn’t. It’s still here....
It's like a bunch of hookers advertising their cellulite/ stretch- mark infested bodies to the highest bidder, and then claiming they deserve respect. Crawling on their hands and knees, pupils dilated on the high of greed, licking their lips almost t...
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'The first command was clear and abs...
Today, as in Clark's day, the U.S Senate remains a club for millionaires. No longer checked by 'instructions' from state legislatures, senators are also more likely to serve for life than they were before passage of the amendment. 'It is as difficult...
...the place I was bound for on my latest pilgrimage was filled with living, first-hand memories of all the enchanted years that lie between two and eighteen. How enchanted those years are is made more and more clear to me the older I grow. There has...
Here are all these people, full of heartache or hatred or desire, and we all have our troubles and the school year is filled with vulgarity and triviality and consequence, and there are all these teachers and kids of every shape and size, and there's...
