Saying good-bye to a city is harder than breaking up with a lover. The grief and regret are more piercing because they are more complex and unmixed, changing from corner to corner, with each passing vista, each shift of the light. Breaking up with a ...
Whatever it is, don't do it!" said Catarina. "It's a bad idea." "And why do you say that?" "Because they're the only kind you have," she said. " I have known you a long time, and I am absolutely certain on this subject. If you are planning on becomin...
The secret to success: Don’t stop to admire yourself too often. I only stopped to admire my work after I wrote eight books, before that, I never once admired myself for accomplishing anything in my profession. Don't stop to admire yourself too much...
Republicans approve of the American farmer, but they are willing to help him go broke. They stand four-square for the American home--but not for housing. They are strong for labor--but they are stronger for restricting labor's rights. They favor mini...
Writing keeps me at my desk, constantly trying to write a perfect sentence. It is a great privilege to make one’s living from writing sentences. The sentence is the greatest invention of civilization. To sit all day long assembling these extraordin...
I grew excited when I realized this basic asymmetry implied that nothing – no evidence, no information, no facts or data – connected me to the stranger except for the evidence of my own personal observations which remained private as long as I ke...
I've never been more hopeful about our future. I have never been more hopeful about America. And I ask you to sustain that hope. I'm not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblock...
One of the outstanding sources of resistance to imperial power in the Muslim world came from Sufi groups. While Sufi brotherhoods are generally known for a more quietist and mystic approach to Islam, they traditionally rank among the best organized a...
Right now, we are in a peak cycle. There’s tremendous energy out there, directed against the state. It’s not all focused, but it’s there, and it’s building. Maybe this will be sufficient to accomplish what we must accomplish over the fairly s...
The American critic Dale Peck, author of Hatchet Jobs (2004), argues that reviewing finds its true character in critical GBH such as Fischer's [review of Martin Amis's Yellow Dog]. It represents a return to the prehistoric origins of reviewing in Zoi...
..But for long years we healers have only sought to patch the rents made by the men of swords. Though we should still have enough to do without them: the world is full enough of hurts and mischances without wars to multiply them.' 'It needs but one f...
An all-powerful and sovereign Creator, who wants to have an intimate relationship with His creation, loves mankind beyond measure. God did not create the human race out of boredom or on a whim. No, He made us for His good pleasure and great delight. ...
I can't understand how people can settle for having just one life. I remember we were in English class and we were talking about that poem by - that one guy. David Frost. 'Two roads diverged in a yellow wood-' You know this poem, right? 'Two roads di...
Approaching the Start of Civil Exams Perhaps I was once a young Chinese scholar approaching the start of civil exams, my mind grown weary and sad from seclusion with books on syntax and poetic style. All that I knew were the mist-covered mountains an...
Sometimes we carry unhappy feelings about past hurts too long. We spend too much energy dwelling on things that have passed and cannot be changed. We struggle to close the door and let go of the hurt. If, after time, we can forgive whatever may have ...
Delia: Charles, I will not stop living and breathing art just because you need to relax. Charles: Ha. Delia: I'm here with you. I will live with you in this hellhole, but I must express myself. If you don't let me gut out this house and make it my ow...
[Adam and Barbara struggle to understand the "Handbook for the Recently Deceased"] Barbara: I hate this. Just- can you give me the basics? Adam: Well, this book isn't arranged that way. What do you wanna know? Barbara: Well, why did you disappear whe...
Luke: I can eat fifty eggs. Dragline: Nobody can eat fifty eggs. Society Red: You just said he could eat anything. Dragline: Did you ever eat fifty eggs? Luke: Nobody ever eat fifty eggs. Prisoner: Hey, Babalugats. We got a bet here. Dragline: My boy...
John Cooper Clarke: The colour scheme is fuckin' brown Everywhere in chicken town, The fuckin' pubs are fuckin' dull The fuckin' clubs are fuckin' full of fuckin' girls and fuckin' guys with fuckin' murder in their eyes, A fuckin' bloke gets fuckin' ...
Nick Fury: Project Insight has to be delayed. Alexander Pierce: Nick, that's not a favor, that's a sub-committee hearing. A long one. Nick Fury: It could be nothing. It probably is nothing. I just need time to make sure it's nothing. Alexander Pierce...
Frances Stevens: Even in this light, I can tell where your eyes are looking. [fireworks] Frances Stevens: Look, John. Hold them. Diamonds... The only thing in the world you can't resist. Then tell me you don't know what I'm talking about. [fireworks]...
