Readers may be divided into four classes: 1) Sponges, who absorb all that they read and return it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtied. 2) Sand-glasses, who retain nothing and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting throu...
Ourchestra: So you haven't got a drum, just beat your belly. So I haven't got a horn-I'll play my nose. So we haven't any cymbals- We'll just slap our hands together, And though there may be orchestras That sound a little better With their fancy shin...
In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we're done with it, we may find - if it's a good novel - that we're a bit different from ...
Why is contemporary China short of works that speak directly? Because we writers cannot speak directly, or rather we can only speak in an indirect way. Why does contemporary China lack good works that critique our current situation? Because our curre...
For those of us who take literature very seriously, picking up a work of fiction is the start of an adventure comparable in anticipatory excitement to what I imagine is felt by an athlete warming up for a competition, a mountain climber preparing for...
You know you're a mom when you open the door to the dishwasher mid-cycle and think, 'This is the closest I'm going to get to a spa treatment till next Mother's Day.'" "Joining the words 'Lose Weight, Effortlessly!' in the same sentence may be a form ...
Pain may be the only reality but if mankind had any sense it would pursue the delusion called happiness. All the philosophers and poets who tell us that pain and suffering have a place and purpose in the cosmic order of things are welcome to them. Th...
In the third place he comes on to the chiefe Organ, that is, the instrument wherewith they should sing. It is not with the Organs of the Papists, no not with thy tongue; but it is with the heart, and with the affection of a well-ruled heart. Therefor...
Hang you, DeVere! She's a close friend, nothing more." He furrowed his brow once again. "Though I do fear of late that she entertains some...expectations." "You think the young widow may aspire to quite another surrogate role? They all do, ol' chap. ...
Status is a funny thing. Money gets you stuff, at least. Status doesn't get you much except the knowledge that you have it. And while money may not make you happy, it is easy to imagine someone who decides they have enough. With status, you can never...
Perhaps the perusal of such works may, without injustice, be compared with the use of opiates, baneful, when habitually and constantly resorted to, but of most blessed power in those moments of pain and of langour, when the whole head is sore, and th...
La noi, în orașele mici, oamenii pleacă de-acasă fără să încuie ușa. Ați putea crede, sirs, că ați nimerit în țara oamenilor cinstiți de la primul până la ultimul, dar, de fapt, suntem la fel de hoți ca toți ceilalți, fie ei franc...
Freundschaft, ou quelque chose comme ça. Ta meilleure amie gagne un million au Loto, t'es contente pour elle et, en même temps, tu peux pas t'empêcher de penser avec rage: "Pourquoi pas moi?". J'adore Ariane, mais quand je vois sa vie parfaite, c'...
True prayer is done in secret, but this does not rule out the fellowship of prayer altogether, however clearly we may be aware of its dangers. In the last resort it is immaterial whether we pray in the open street or in the secrecy of our chambers, w...
Bless them that persecute you.' If our enemy cannot put up with us any longer and takes to cursing us, our immediate reaction must be to lift up our hands and bless him. Our enemies are the blessed of the Lord. Their curse can do us no harm. May thei...
For this very short time in your life, and possibly never again, you will be given a very unique gift: a supremely rich environment with ample time, space, safety and people to explore whatever interests you intensely, to push yourself, to make mista...
We guess as we read, we create; everything starts from an initial error; those that follow (and this applies not only to the reading of letters and telegrams, not only to all reading), extraordinary as they may appear to a person who has not begun at...
The proper way is lost to me; my compass spins. I therefore give my entire attention to those works that seem to me most incorruptible: the application of heat, the proportion of seasoning, the arrangement of a plate. When robbed of all pretensions a...
Each day is an adventure in discovering the meaning of life. It is each little thing that you do that day - whether it be spending time with your friends, running in a cross-country meet or just simply staring at the crashing ocean- that holds the ke...
.....listening means learning to hear someone's inner world and deepest feelings with far greater attention in order that we don't let our own assumptions get in the way. The dying may speak in images far more akin to dreamland than the world of ever...
When one ponders on the tremendous journey of evolution over the past three billion years or so, the prodigious wealth of structures it has engendered, and the extraordinarily effective teleonomic performances of living beings from bacteria to man, o...
