What is most important is the deeply felt conviction that freedom is like oxygen, and I hope The Long Walk is a reminder that when lost, freedom is difficult to regain.
It happens all too often - people regret that their language and culture are being lost but at the same time decide not to saddle their own children with the chore of preserving them.
One of the grubby truths about a loss is that you don't just mourn the dead person, you mourn the person you got to be when the lost one was alive. This loss might even be what affects you the most.
Then the whole range, much nearer now, paled into fresh splendor; a full moon rose, touching each peak in succession like some celestial lamplighter, until the long horizon glittered against a blue-black sky.
If I could put it into a very few words, dear sir, I should say that our prevalent belief is in moderation. We inculcate the virtue of avoiding excesses of all kinds—even including, if you will pardon the paradox, excess of virtue itself.
You can't change where you come from, but you can change where you go from here. Just like a book. If you don't like the ending, you can make up a new one.
People go entire lives without figuring out exactly what they want from life. You already have it, and the future you and your dad have planned out for you in going to take it away from you.
People—especially men—don't always know what they want. You try, and if it doesn't work, then you may quit.” As if she'd read her mind, Abuelita frowned and scolded, “Hearts mend, but lost chances are gone forever.
A miracle happened. Right there and then, in amongst the lunchtime diners and tourists, with the sweeping views of San Francisco Bay outside the window and the sea lions making a racket on the wharf below, a miracle happened. And Samuel lost any hope...
Boys like it when you talk to them as if they were grown men—at least he always did when he was a kid—because they pretend that’s what they are anyhow, grown-up men, and they do it for their entire lives.
I believe that life always has a way of surprising you, for better or for worse," he looks at me once more, his eyes holding mine captive in its strong hold. "And that you always have a choice as to how the story ends...
I could have blamed it on the intoxication of youth. Others might find fault on just intoxication. My parents would say that it was an act of plain stupidity. Reality would point out that it was Thursday night at college and the youth are prone to er...
Waiting for a book to be published is like having a baby. It would be nine months before we heard the patter of tiny pages trotting through the letter box, and the bookcase shuffled it's shelves in boredom and I was a martyr to morning sickness.
[It] is hardly possible to maintain seriously that the evil done by science is not altogether outweighed by the good. For example, if ten million lives were lost in every war, the net effect of science would still have been to increase the average le...
The scent of him was subtle, beautifully fresh, and she couldn’t think clearly. No man had ever brought out these intense feelings in her. Chris Augustine was dangerous and she could get lost in his arms.
Stars, I have seen them fall, But when they drop and die No star is lost at all From all the star-sown sky. The toil of all that be Helps not the primal fault; It rains into the sea And still the sea is salt.
So you heroically undertook to endure the pains of faithlessness, just to be able to write good poems. But you didn´t realise then that when you lost that voice inside you, you´d end up all alone in an empty universe.
First of all, he was not my type. He was nice, considerate, unselfish and grounded; qualities I’d never experienced in a man. Usually, I went for the self centered, screwed up, “I’m lost, will you be my mother” type.
If you had to pack your whole life into a suitcase-not just the practical things, like clothing, but the memories of the people you had lost and the girl you had once been-what would you take?
Well, on some level, it’s similar to the psychological phenomenon of helplessness, where the will to try is lost. You get to the point where you just assume that your spontaneous call to a friend will go to voicemail or an assistant, and you decide...
Why does anyone fight a war? To protect a way of life, to find or support loved ones. To avenge those lost. Or maybe because it's a calling. Because someone has to. Because there's a line no enemy should be allowed to cross.
