Evangelicals sometimes expect too much or, to put it more precisely, we look for a kind of change God hasn't promised. It's possible to expect too little, but under-expectation is usually a cynical reaction to dashed hopes for too much. We manage to ...
He does manage the bookstore, which is currently my favorite place on earth." Her eyes glazed over. "All those books. If I married him, I could probably work there the rest of my life. Nothing would make me happier." "What about love?" Ve asked. "Oh,...
I need more than anything right now what is, of course, most impossible, someone to love me, to be with me at night when I wake up in shuddering horror and fear of the cement tunnels leading down to the shock room, to comfort me with an assurance tha...
After he wrote The Paradox of Choice, Schwartz got fervent amens from European governments as well as individual readers for insisting that the management of your focus has become one of decision-laden modernity's major challenges. Many behavioral ec...
Even the best cook can’t make chicken soup out of his own feet. There aren’t so terribly many ingredients in anyone’s life, less meat than there is on a sparrow. The average person could come up with at most two good novels. Many who think very...
The age of lost innocence varies for each person. Some lose it when they learn that their childhood fantasies are merely myth, while others lose theirs due to trauma. As adults, we often look down our noses at those who manage to retain their innocen...
Listen to me instead of your financial manager: It’s okay to spend money, to save it, to give it away, to worry over it. It’s just money. Your only enemy in life is time. Do be miser with time: hoard it, treasure it, don’t squander a single min...
When you think about it, the Big Bang's a big like school, isn't it? ... Well, I mean to say, one day we'll all leave here and become scientists and bank clerks and driving instructors and hotel managers -- the fabric of society, so to speak. But in ...
...Our conversation with the supermarket manager had been about as helpful as a New Jersey road sign, and if you've ever been there, you know the signs don't tell you the exit you're coming up to, they only point out the exits you've just missed. It ...
Jimmi manages a laugh that makes my skin crawl. “Do you really think what you read in those books is true? Sure, some of it may be but have you ever actually paid attention to it? It's all false set upon us as truth. You can't coat something with l...
Tessio Zizmo had been a virgin when she married Milton Stephanides at the age of 22. Their engagement,which coincided with the Second World War, had been a chaste affair. My mother was proud of the way she'd managed to simultaneously kindle and snuff...
I had come to Boyne City because I have always been drawn to nature's secrets more than to, say Hollywood's secrets or the secrets of Wall Street hedge-fund managers. Nature is real. It exists beyond our ability to create it or even mediate it.
Watching a make-out while wrapped in a blanket with a guy she wanted to make out with made her feel exposed. Obvious. Transparent. Like her thoughts were flashing before his eyes. Finally Brett managed to pull away without consent of Bekka's lips. Th...
Trauma. It doesn't eke itself out over time. It doesn't split itself manageably into bite-sized chunks and distribute itself equally throughout your life. Trauma is all or nothing. A tsunami wave of destruction. A tornado of unimaginable awfulness th...
A single person is a manageable entity, whom you can either make friends with or leave alone. But half of a married couple is not exactly a whole human being: if the marriage is successful it is something a little more than that; if unsuccessful, a l...
She put her hands over her face. Ah crap. What do I do now? Do I say something, do I not say something? I kept talking, keeping my voice as light as I could manage. Her shoulders shook slightly. She was crying. Fuck me. I sat there, not sure what to ...
All of the things that were shown in early studies to be good for longevity—happy marriages, healthy bodies—are ours to have. We live long, good lives. We die on our eightieth birthdays, surrounded by our families, before dementia sets in. Cancer...
Fewer than one in twenty security professionals has the core competence and the foundation knowledge to take a system all the way from a completely unknown state of security through mapping, vulnerability testing, password cracking, modem testing, vu...
Great leaders catch and correct problems while they’re still small and able to be managed without a lot of hassle. If ignored too long, small problems will morph into much bigger issues that will require more time and effort and at a high cost, cau...
I cannot sufficiently celebrate the glorious liberty that reigns in the public libraries of the twentieth century as compared with the intolerable management of those of the nineteenth century, in which the books were jealously railed away from the p...
Then I probably fainted. The woman at the registration desk managed to put on a sympathetic expression afterward, as if she wanted to ask, "What are you going to do now?" I told her not to worry, I was really leaving, I was going home. But go home wh...
