We respect the role of the Senate. We respect the authority of the Senate to look at the qualifications of Judge Roberts, and at the end of the day I'm optimistic that if given a fair hearing and a fair opportunity, that he will be confirmed.
I understand the Second Amendment. I respect the Second Amendment. I think we need to use common sense tools to keep the American people safe, to keep our streets safe.
I always request a king-size bed, and if I can't, I try to work that out right after I land. I unpack immediately so the clothes don't get wrinkled. I go the gym. I adjust the temperature; I like the room kind of warm. And then turn on CNBC.
Why could Tolkien not be more like Sir Thomas Malory, asked [Edwin] Muir, in the third Observer review of those cited above, and give us heroes and heroines like Lancelot and Guinevere, who ' knew temptation, were sometimes unfaithful to their vows,'...
If the gods bring to you a strange and frightening creature, accept the gift as if it were one you had chosen. Say the accustomed prayers, oil the hooves well, caress the small ears with praise. Have the new halter of woven silver embedded with jewel...
The word of the king is the king of words.
The heart's actions are neither the sentence nor its reprieve. Salt hay and thistles, above the cold granite. One bird singing back to another because it can't not.
Let us understand, once for all, that the ethical progress of society depends, not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running away from it, but in combating it.
Once a disease has entered the body, all parts which are healthy must fight it: not one alone, but all. Because a disease might mean their common death. Nature knows this; and Nature attacks the disease with whatever help she can muster.
There once was a time when all people believed in God and the church ruled. This time was called the Dark Ages.
I may conclude this chapter by quoting a saying of Professor , that whenever a new and startling fact is brought to light in science, people first say, 'it is not true,' then that 'it is contrary to religion,' and lastly, 'that everybody knew it befo...
...the Bush administration may, in future years, be remembered 'for bringing peace to the Middle East' (as Condoleezza Rice has pronounced). History may be the mother of truth, but it can also give birth to illegitimate children.
I watch and listen, helpless to help. There is no point in saying "This, too, shall pass," For a time we do not even want it to pass. We hold on to grief, fearing that its lifting will be the final betrayal.
There's a strength in that look, a wilfulness; one would almost call it defiance except that it is so good-humoured. It is the look a woman would wear - would have worn - if she asked a man, a stranger, say, to dance.
One way poetry connects is across time. . . . Some echo of a writer's physical experience comes into us when we read her poem.
It happens all too often - people regret that their language and culture are being lost but at the same time decide not to saddle their own children with the chore of preserving them.
On the basis of this information, it would be possible to argue that if everybody spoke English (or Chinese or Esperanto for that matter) everybody would be at war even more often.
Our society accepts the book as a given, but the act of reading -- once considered useful and important, as well as potentially dangerous and subversive -- is now condescendingly accepted as a pastime, a slow pastime that lacks efficiency and does no...
My books hold between their covers every story I've ever known and still remember, or have now forgotten, or may one day read; they fill the space around me with ancient and new voices.
Digestion of words as well; I often read aloud to myself in my writing corner in the library, where no one can hear me, for the sake of better savouring the text, so as to make it all the more mine.
It hardly matters why a library is destroyed: every banning, curtailment, shredding, plunder or loot gives rise (at least as a ghostly presence) to a louder, clearer, more durable library of the banned, looted, plundered, shredded or curtailed.
