Desperation is a great giver of clarity: Bartimaeus needed no time to decide what to do next. “Jesus! Son of David!” he shouted. “Have mercy on me!” (Mark 10:47). The crowd turned to him in disgust. “Shut your mouth, son of filth!” But Ba...
Everybody is so happy, and no one has a thought for you. And this is what happens to me everywhere and always. Everyone has marked out his own little spot on the Earth, his warm stove, his cup of coffee, his wife, his glass of wine in the evening, an...
The subject of money was not mentioned again at the time, but when Miss Todd began going to Mrs Morland as secretary, she insisted on having an account from Dr Ford, much to his annoyance. He persuaded, he blustered, he was almost pathetic, but Miss ...
. . . have not some religions, including the most influential forms of Christianity, taught that the heart of man is totally corrupt? How could the course of religion in its entire sweep not be marked by practices that are shameful in their cruelty a...
Honesty is not the same as truth. That is the obstacle of the notion of relative truths. I would like to put my trust in the lunatic. He is the one least concerned of what I think of him, the mark of an honest man. I can always depend on him to be co...
Copies have been dethroned; the economic model built on them is collapsing. In a regime of superabundant free copies, copies are no longer the basis of wealth. Now relationships, links, connections, and sharing are. Value has shifted away from a copy...
Our lives are marked by the people who choose to matter more: the teacher who encouraged our curiosity, the neighbor who lent a helping hand in time of need, the great leaders and perceptive thinkers whose vision and innovation improve the quality of...
The theologians dead, knew no more than the theologians now living. More than this cannot be said. About this world little is known,—about another world, nothing. Our fathers were intellectual serfs, and their fathers were slaves. The makers of our...
At the end of this journey, it seems to me that reconciling the long shadows cast by the uneasy past may ultimately depend on elements so basic that they bring to mind a simple Slav proverb I once came across and never forgot: Eat bread and salt and ...
While believing strongly, without evidence, is considered a mark of madness or stupidity in any other area of our lives, faith in God still holds immense prestige in our society. Religion is the one area of our discourse where it is considered noble ...
Mark raised his eyebrows, ‘you don't know the half of it,’ he further mumbled, more to himself than in reply to Frankie. ‘But listen up; because this isn’t about me anyway; this is about you, about how you need to sort it out, yeah? This is a...
Honestly, as much as I love my brother, I’m not sure how I feel about him hanging out in your bedroom.” He reached out with a muscular arm and used his fingers to brush a few strands of hair off my cheek, tucking them behind my ear. I shivered, a...
When she thinks of the toxins built up inside of her from so many years of eating carelessly, of the resentment that has grown steadily over fifteen years of marriage, of the stretch marks and the varicose veins that came from two pregnancies, only o...
He stepped forward and took the butterfly hanging around my neck between his two fingers: “This will remind me, both of my mistake and how much I care for you.” He took another step closer so we were only inches apart, and his hand moved to the b...
Everything seems different now. The room I am in looks no more familiar to me than it did this morning when I woke up and stumbled into it, trying to find the kitchen, desperate for a drink of water, desperate to piece together what happened last nig...
I acquired a central ability that was to help me through my entire career: patience. I'm serious. Patience is usually so underrated. I mean, for all these projects, from third grade all the way to eighth grade, I just learned things gradually, figuri...
Intellectual freedom begins when one says with Socrates that he knows that he knows nothing, and then goes on to add: Do you know what you don’t know and therefore what you should know? If your answer is affirmative and humble, then you are your ow...
Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them --work, family, health, friends and spirit and you're keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it ...
Literature is love. I think it went like this: drawings in the cave, sounds in the cave, songs in the cave, songs about us. Later, stories about us. Part of what we always did was have sex and fight about it and break each other’s hearts. I guess t...
The mark of a real man, is a man who can allow himself to fall deeply in love with a woman. But the reason why a man is often heartbroken, is because a woman can become overcome by the reality that she has made a man out of a boy, because it's just s...
Tyler Fitzgerald: You know what I need? I need a drink. There's some ice and stuff back there. Why don't you make us all some old fashioneds? Ding Bell: "Old Fashions"? Do you think you oughta drink while you're flying? Tyler Fitzgerald: Well stop ki...
