The most important thing in defining child sexual abuse is the experience of the child. It takes very little for a child’s world to be devastated. A single experience can have a profound impact on a child’s life. A man sticks his hand in his daug...
It always amazes me to look at the little, wrinkled brown seeds and think of the rainbows in 'em," said Captain Jim. "When I ponder on them seeds I don't find it nowise hard to believe that we've got souls that'll live in other worlds. You couldn't h...
With a little persuasion, any familiar thing can turn abnormal in the mind. Here's a thought experiment. Consider this brutal bit of magic. A human grows a second human in a space inside her belly; she grows a second heart and a second brain, second ...
An old market had stood there until I'd been about six years old, when the authorities had renamed it the Olde Market, destroyed it, and built a new market devoted to selling T-shirts and other objects with pictures of the old market. Meanwhile, the ...
It seems more than a little patronizing for Westerners to lament the loss of the good old days when life in the Khumbu was so much simpler and more picturesque. Most of the people who live in this rugged country seem to have no desire to be severed f...
By approaching my problems with "What might make things a little better?" rather than "What is the solution?" I avoid setting myself up for certain frustration. My experience has shown me that I am not going to solve anything in one stroke; at best I...
You wouldn't know it, from some of the things I've said over the years, but I like people... I do... I like people, but I like them in short bursts. I don't like people for extended periods of time. I'm all right with them for a little while, but onc...
Witch' is just a religion, okay? No baby-sacrificing, no Black Masses, no sending imps out to scare the dog-snot out of kids, trying to make them think they're crazy. We don't do things like that. Our number-one law is 'Have fun in this lifetime, but...
I'd still thought that everything I thought about that night-the shame, the fear-would fade in time. But that hadn't happened. Instead, the things that I remembered, these little details, seemed to grow stronger, to the point where I could feel their...
The notion of children makes me ill. The thought of having one... when you see those guys in the supermarket, wheeling the trolley around while their brats whine and wheedle and some blundering sow questions every little thing they take off the shelv...
Why couldn't Rachel be a little more specific about the type of person she was? Goodness knew; if she were a hippie I'd talk to her about her drug experiences, the zodiac, tarot cards. If she were left-wing I'd look miserable, hate Greece, and eat ba...
You'll let me put a total stranger's piss hose in my mouth while my knees scream in agony on the hard floor? Right here in from of everyone? Gosh, such a hard thing to pass up. But you know, I'd rather eat Ebola pudding than let your sad little dick ...
Maura looks stunned, as though she's been slapped. "What about me? Don't you trust me?" She gives a hysterical little laugh. Tears are gathering in her blue eyes. "Let me guess: you think I'm reckless. 'Too easily ruled by my emotions,' Elena said. A...
I somewhat understand now why He favored all of you so much. And why one of us had been jealous, led the quarter of the others, and had been casted down. There’s a little of Him in all of you,” Sigrid uttered after a while, and then she rested he...
Back then, things were plainer: less money, no electronic devices, little fashion tyranny, no girlfriends. There was nothing to distract us from our human and filial duty which was to study, pass exams, use those qualifications to find a job, and the...
I see now how things even up, how they are squared away, and how they balance under the law of love and justice. No year of life is emotionally, spiritually or even materially, all drought or all rainfall; nor is it all sun. The road turns a little e...
He is wearing a rugby shirt with numbers and a little man on a horse on his chest. Kent has told Elsa that this sort of shirt costs more than a thousand kronor, and Granny always used to say that those sorts of shirts were a good thing, because the h...
People do this a lot. They don't seem to realise that the future is just like now, but in a little while, so they say they're going to do things in anticipation of some kind of seismic shift in their worldview that never actually materialises. But ev...
That’s how you tell what a man’s really made of. It’s one thing for a man to be big and brave and kill a spider. Any man could do that. Trailin’ after a woman when she’s shopping for thongs and push-up bras is a whole other category of man....
A simple life is not seeing how little we can get by with—that’s poverty—but how efficiently we can put first things first. . . . When you’re clear about your purpose and your priorities, you can painlessly discard whatever does not support t...
I was learning to recognize when God was speaking through someone. He repeats himself. He says it over and over because we are so stubborn, stupid and unwilling. And even scared. Even when he tells us not to be afraid, we set our minds about it, worr...
