Frank Capra made a series of films during World War II called 'Why We Fight' that explored America's reasons for entering the war. Today, with our troops engaged in Iraq and elsewhere for reasons far less clear, I think it's crucial to ask the questi...
Hyman Roth: There was this kid I grew up with; he was younger than me. Sorta looked up to me, you know. We did our first work together, worked our way out of the street. Things were good, we made the most of it. During Prohibition, we ran molasses in...
It's an illness," she said, although she made the words sound like "it's uh nillness." Nillness, thought Strike, for a second distracted. Sometimes illness turned slowly to nillness, as was happening to Bristow's mother... sometimes nillness rose to ...
There are choices in life which you are aware, even as you make them, cannot be undone; choices after which, once made, things will never be the same. There is that moment when you can still walk away, but if you do, you will never know what might ha...
As with men, it has always seemed to me that books have their own peculiar destinies. They go towards the people who are waiting for them and reach them at the right moment. They are made of living material and continue to cast light through the dark...
Murphy watched me thoughtfully for several empty seconds. Then she said, very gently, "You're a good man, Harry." I swallowed and bowed my head, made humble by the tone of her voice and the expression on her face, more than the words themselves. Not ...
Sometimes, for revenge to be as sweet and painful as it is intended, some time has to pass. Time enough that people have forgotten about past hurts and humiliations. Time enough to make the poison of bitterness consume a soul. It was to be that time....
She deserved someone who could see what she had to give and would lover her for it. Who wouldn't turn away from her every time she made a mistake. She wanted to be important to someone. Perhaps, it was unrealistic, but the alternative was far worse. ...
I don’t think of it that way. Besides, it’s only temporary. Once Dad sees that— That what? That the idiot who kidnapped you, stole you again, and made you an accomplice to a bunch of criminals, still calls you his? Something tells me that you b...
The sword wears out its sheath, as it is sometimes said. That is my story. My passions have made me live, and my passions have killed me. What passions, it may be asked. Trifles, the most childish things in the world. Yet they affected me as much as ...
The white policeman was a man who gave an impression of heaviness. It wasn't that he was fat, but he sagged as if with a moral or psychic burden; his shoulders sagged, his eyes sagged, his suit sagged and he sat sagged in his chair, as if his disappo...
While I was fearing it, it came, But came with less of fear, Because that fearing it so long Had almost made it dear. There is a fitting a dismay, A fitting a despair. 'T is harder knowing it is due, Than knowing it is here. The trying on the utmost,...
He bent to put his cheek against hers. His breath against her ear made her shudder with each deliberately spoken word. "I have wanted to do this," he said, "every moment of every hour of every day that I have been with you since the day I met you.
After all, most of us have lived lives based on commitments made without any way of knowing where they would lead. The uncertainty is an essential element in commitment, the acceptance of consequences an essential element in fidelity. [p. 80]
Miracles... seem to me to rest not so much upon... healing power coming suddenly near us from afar but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that, for a moment, our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there around us always.
I went to bed without reading, instead staring out my window with the curtains drawn, wondering about boys. Why did they behave so oddly? One minute their teasing was relentless, and then -- they’d stun you with a thoughtful gesture. Either way, th...
Travis: I didn’t know they made permanent makeup. I looked like a clown for a month. Connor: Yeah. They put a curse on me so that no matter what I wore, my clothes were two sizes too small and I felt like a geek. Travis: You are a geek.
He has made me wary of chronological snobbery. That is, he showed me that newness is no virtue and oldness is no vice. Truth and beauty and goodness are not determined by when they exist. Nothing is inferior for being old, and nothing is valuable for...
I thought of the parable of the prodigal son. We had made merry for the beloved child's return too - but what happens when the beloved child doesn't say she's sorry? The parable doesn't talk about that. Jesus figures of you're sorry. Jesus, I thought...
Which story do you want to hear my child?"he picked him up and made him sit on his lap. "Tell us the story of that fairy who lived in a house of wafers,had a garden of chocolate trees and a pond full of goldfishes,"the child wrapped his arms around h...
Those 10000 days in prison, but this never made Nelson Mandela to leave what he was doing. He loved what he did and he would repeat to again if he had been arrested again and imprisoned again! He has his bigger picture in view!
