They still possess virtues which might cause shame to most Christians. No hospitals are needed among them, because there are neither mendicants nor paupers as long as there are any rich people among them. Their kindness, humanity, and courtesy not on...
He was lonely because he could imagine himself as anything but himself and as anywhere but where he was. His competitiveness and self-centeredness cut him off from any thought of shared life. He wanted to have more because he thought that having more...
While everyone adjusted themselves and their packs, Donna sniffed curiously at Louie's nose. Her attitude suggested she might want to make friends with the giant dog; Lou couldn't resist the temptation. Once Donna lured Louie in, she slowly, cautious...
I hold another creed, which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention, but in which I delight, and to which I cling, for it extends hope to all; it makes eternity a rest - a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I ...
Jane: Mr. Rochester, if ever I did a good deed in my life-if ever I thought a good thought-if ever I prayed a sincere and blameless prayer-if ever I wished a righteous wish-I am rewarded now. To be your wife is, for me, to be as happy as I can be on ...
Sometimes, very rarely, life endows you with a moment of sheer flawlessness when everything is just like it is supposed to be – the smell of the air, the softness of the light, the sound of birds perching in the treetops, and someone’s smiling ey...
I laughed but before I could agree with the hairdressers that she was crazy, she said, 'What's the world for if you can't make it up the way you want it?' " 'The way I want it?' " 'Yeah. The way you want it. Don't you want it to be something more tha...
Or take this girl, for example. At a meeting just outside Paris, a fifteen-year-old girl came up to me and said that she'd been to see [The Double Life of] Véronique. She'd gone once, twice, three times and only wanted to say one thing really - that...
God knew man would evolve. People think some of the Old Testament laws are absurd now because we live in a very different culture, a different time period. They had their problems and we have ours. God is constant but man is not, and he foreknew the ...
I am a degenerate modern semi-intellectual who would die if I did not get my early morning cup of tea and my every Friday. Clearly I do not, in a sense, 'want' to return to a simpler, harder, probably agricultural way of life. In the same sense I don...
You’re being deliberately cruel, now.” “No – I think deliberately cruel would be if I told you something rude, like: I’d love to see you stroking your stiff dick until you came all over yourself.” I pause again, but this time it’s not t...
The only thing I knew for sure is I hadn’t slept in ten years. Not really. I’d been fighting my own monster since nine months after 9/11. I had regrets. I had pain that I still can’t find words to describe. But sooner or later you have to make ...
Like all of my important memories, it has a potency that has influenced the pocket of time that holds it, so I can remember that particular Saturday afternoon, even though in many ways it was no different from any other. I can remember, for example, ...
The finest SF comes to grips with life's mysteries, with our resentments against our own natures and our limited societies. It does so by asking basic questions in the artful, liberating way that is unique to this form of writing. Echoes of it are fo...
There is a fine line between friendship and parenting, and when that line is crossed, the result is often disastrous. A parent who strives to make a true friend of his or her child may well sacrifice authority, and though the parent may be comfortabl...
What a nightmare!" cried Imtaz. "There's nothing gloomier than nature. You'll lose your sense of humor in the country. Unable to criticize the trees, your intelligence will lose its edge as you contemplate the plowed fields, and then, it'll be very e...
Everybody says they want artists to make money and then when they do, everybody hates them for it. The word sellout is spit out by the bitterest, smallest parts of ourselves. Don't be one of those horrible fans who stops listening to your favorite ba...
To keep myself from harming or calling N and to stave off the rage and despair, I focus on my extraordinary son, drink midrange Chardonnay every night after he is asleep, and make a barrage of late-night mail-order retail purchases placed from the co...
For Children: You will need to know the difference between Friday and a fried egg. It's quite a simple difference, but an important one. Friday comes at the end of the week, whereas a fried egg comes out of a chicken. Like most things, of course, it ...
Christmas is the marriage of chaos and design. The real sound of life, for once, can burst out because a formal place has been set for it. At the moment when things have gotten sufficiently loose, the secret selves that these familiar persons hold in...
Their arrogance protected them against any liking for their fellow-man, against the slightest interest in the strangers sitting all about them, amidst whom M. de Stermaria adopted the manner one has in the buffet-car of a train, grim, hurried, stand-...
