The journey through another world, beyond bad dreams beyond the memories of a murdered generation, cartographed in captivity by bare survivors makes sacristans of us all. The old ones go our bail, we oblate preachers of our tribes. Be careful, they s...
It was frightening, this new clarity of vision: but I felt free at last to know darkness as the other side of light, and that both were needed for sight. And with that thought—it was almost as though I felt it in truth—the shackles of my old impr...
One thing she did not know was the greatest book on human psychology is the Bible. If you were lazy and did not wish to work, or if you had failed to make your way in the society, you could always say 'my kingdom is not of this world'. If you were a ...
The true elitists in the literary world are the ones who have become annoyed by literary ambition in any form, who have converted the very meaning of ambition so totally that it now registers as an act of disdain, a hostility to the poor common reade...
I am a Christian - but sometimes I feel very removed from Christianity. The Jesus Christ that I believe in was the man who turned over the tables in the temple and threw the money-changers out - substitute T.V. evangelists if you like…why in the We...
Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. The...
I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end...
Love is a form of prejudice. You love what you need, you love what makes you feel good, you love what is convenient. How can you say you love one person when there are ten thousand people in the world that you would love more if you ever met them? Bu...
(Popular singer Eddie Fisher, appearing on This is Show Business, told Kaufman that women refused to date him because he looked so young.) Mr. Fisher, on Mount Wilson there is a telescope that can magnify the most distant stars up to twenty-four time...
There are two influences ever present in the world. One is constructive and elevating and comes from our Heavenly Father; the other is destructive and debasing and comes from Lucifer. We have our agency and make our own choice in life subject to thes...
The dilemma is this. In the modern world knowledge has been growing so fast and so enormously, in almost every field, that the probabilities are immensely against anybody, no matter how innately clever, being able to make a contribution in any one fi...
I who am blind can give one hint to those who see: Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. And the same method can be applied to the other senses. Hear the music of voices, the song of a bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra, as ...
There are people everywhere who form a Fourth World, or a diaspora of their own. They are the lordly ones! They come in all colors. They can be Christians or Hindus or Muslims or Jews or pagans or atheists. They can be young or old, men or women, sol...
{Recalling Professor 's remarks (1895) to a group of his graduate students about to go out with their degrees into the world beyond the university:} He talked to us for an hour on what was ahead of us; cautioned us against giving up the desire to pus...
I'm not saying that suffering is our fault. I believe we suffer because sin has taken hold of the world. And with sin comes selfishness and heartlessness and wickedness. But I also think there will be a day of reckoning, Nick, when God lays out all w...
There is a very good organization called "Make a Wish Foundation" that helps make a dying child's wishes come true. People go out of their way and work together to create an unbelievable lasting memory for a deserving person. What just dawned on me w...
We expect the world of doctors. Out of our own need, we revere them; we imagine that their training and expertise and saintly dedication have purged them of all the uncertainty, trepidation, and disgust that we would feel in their position, seeing wh...
Now, the invention of the scientific method and science is, I'm sure we'll all agree, the most powerful intellectual idea, the most powerful framework for thinking and investigating and understanding and challenging the world around us that there is,...
A pall fell over the room. A black shroud of disease and deathbeds and all the worst things from all the worst places. This mutant world, a tragic portmanteau, the unnatural marriage of two roots as different as could be. 'And do you, Ability take Vi...
I spend a lot of time with young people now, bright, public-spirited kids from across the political spectrum who give me hope for the future...They want to have an impact, but they're not sure that politics is a viable path on which to do that. Congr...
To call up modern versions of the old stories, one has to go forth and live life. As a result then, one will have the challenge of not only living the story, taking it all in, but also interpreting it in whatever ways are useful. So too, one will rea...
