Invadiu-me um medo estranho. Não queria voltar à solidão do meu quarto. Caminhei pelas ruas de Berlim até à avenida de Kurfürstendamm que, de tão iluminada, era um mundo por si. Nada tinha a ver com o outro, o mundo de todos os dias, cheio de ...
By the time of the arrival of Islam in the early seventeenth century CE, what we now call the Middle East was divided between the Persian and Byzantine empires. But with the spread of this new religion from Arabia, a powerful empire emerged, and with...
Creativity is a magic wand that works two ways. When you set it in action and seek to create something, it does not just brings into existence that object or work, it also raises in your heart a dream, a hope, and a will to achieve that creation. And...
How are things with you, sir?" "Fine." He says it flat."Coffee black. BLT." Now my heart tells me this guy needs more in life, so I take a short. "You ever had a cheese burger with grilled onions and mushrooms on pumpernickel, sir?" That takes a minu...
Here again, it occurred to me, was the unique problem that faces my generation, the generation of those who had been, say, seven or eight years old during the mid-1960s, the generation of the grandchildren of those who'd been adults when it all happe...
I could care less who knows who I know and what they think of the person because if that person did me no wrong I don't listen to a rumor about someone unless I see it for myself or when it is proven true. and it's just the way that I am.. and it's l...
In order to write a memoir, I’ve sat still inside the swirling vortex of my own complicated history like a piece of old driftwood, battered by the sea. I’ve waited—sometimes patiently, sometimes in despair—for the story under pressure of conc...
For me, creative energy is like an old-fashioned ground-water well. When the well is dry, it’s dry. I can dig all I like, and all I’ll get for my pains is sore hands, some very bad prose, and maybe (if I’m lucky) a few odd droplets of notes I c...
El verano es una estación triste en la que nada crece. Quién no prefiere el mes de diciembre pese a la amargura que provoca la felicidad ajena; incluso la establecida crueldad de abril es mil veces más estimulante. La canción del verano es siempr...
Fantasy elevates ordinary and eternal problems of young people into stories via the language of myth. It turns “No one really knows me” into “I’ve got a secret identity.” It turns “I don’t understand why other people act the way they do...
You might tell me that you have been engaging in some deep questioning and theological rethinking.1 You can no longer live with the faith you inherited from your parents or constructed earlier in your life. As you sort through your dogma and doctrine...
Religion is dangerous because it allows human beings who don't have all the answers to think that they do. Most people would think it's wonderful when someone says 'I'm willing lord, I'll do whatever you want me to do' except that since there are no ...
Writing is something that you don't know how to do. You sit down and it's something that happens, or it may not happen. So, how can you teach anybody how to write? It's beyond me, because you yourself don't even know if you're going to be able to. I'...
I am an obscure and patient pearl-fisherman who dives into the deepest waters and comes up with empty hands and a blue face. Some fatal attraction draws me down into the abysses of thought, down into those innermost recesses which never cease to fasc...
You think you know horror, Irnakk? Horror is looking into the eyes of the Shadowed One, knowing you are about to die... and then being forced to live. Horror is waking each day to see every part of your body moving on its own - a shifting mass of Pro...
It's perfectly clear to me that religion is a myth. It's something we have invented to explain the inexplicable. My religion and the spiritual side of my life come from a sense of connection to the humankind and nature on this planet and in the unive...
How I hated myself, thwarted, poisoned and tortured myself, made myself old and ugly. Never again, as I once fondly imagined, will I consider that Siddartha is clever. But one thing I have done well, which pleases me, which I must praise- I have now ...
I put my faith in something unknown, beyond the moon, sun, and stars, one day I will own. I put my faith in something, renew. Beyond the rivers, deserts, mountains and valleys.One day it shall become new. I cannot renounce the struggle But yes, it’...
I suppose I should include Uncle Jimmy, Aunt Alexandra’s husband, but as he never spoke a word to me in my life except to say, “Get off the fence,” once, I never saw any reason to take notice of him. Neither did Aunt Alexandra. Long ago, in a b...
No matter what choice you make, it doesn't define you. Not forever. People can make bad choices and change their minds and hearts and do good things later; just as people can make good choices and then turn around and walk a bad path. No choice we ma...
Because I am for them, Commander, because their ancestors stood up to that Nazi, Bligh, just like I would be for one little Jew, terrified and hungry, crossing the Pyrenees to get away to freedom from the Gestapo. One little Jew. You wouldn't have hi...
