I’m just not ready to give myself up, Sammy. I mean, there’s something perfect about virginity, and I haven’t found someone who deserves to take that perfection from me…” “You’re loco, Carlos. Insane. Totally crazy… Most guys think th...
Now I'm making a decision. I choose life. I shall live because there are few people I want to stay with for the longest possible time and because I have duties to discharge. It is not my concern whether or not life has meaning. If I am unable to forg...
As the lines on the palm and forehead … turned darker and thicker, as he matured along the highs and lows of life-wave, the hazy and blurred phrases shook off the dust of time and dried the moisture of pain, thus being vivid like an image on a carv...
The advantages of developing absorption concentration are not only that it provides a stable and receptive state of mind for the practice of insight meditation. The experience of absorption is one of intense pleasure and happiness, brought about by p...
...Robert Louis Stevenson presents a character who, in London at night, is astonished 'to walk for such a long time in such a complex decor without encountering even the slightest shadow of an adventure.' The urbanists of the twentieth century will h...
Whereas life separates meaning from emotion, art unites them. Story is an instrument by which you create such epiphanies at will, the phenomenon known as aesthetic emotion...Life on its own, without art to shape it, leaves you in confusion and chaos,...
Jimmy Sadd is the most evil man I’ve ever known. I mean really evil. I’m not talking about tough, or cruel – all the bosses are tough and cruel. You’ll never get anywhere in our world if you’re not respected. But Jimmy ... God damn, Bruno, ...
When my mother didn't come back I realized that any moment could be the last. Nothing in life should simply be a passage from one place to another. Each walk should be taken as if it is the only thing you have left. You can demand something like this...
if you hurt deeply, then it means you love deeply too. love is powerful thing, Jaron. In the end, love will help you win this war." I chuckled, "that'd be a fine new strategy, I think. When the enemy wields a sword against me, I'll simply express my ...
I told you that 'juvenile delinquent' is a contradiction in terms. 'Delinquent' means 'failing in duty.' But duty is an adult virtue—indeed a juvenile becomes an adult when, and only when, he acquires a knowledge of duty and embraces it as dearer t...
If education really educates, there will, in time, be more and more citizens who understand that relics of the old West add meaning and value to the new. Youth yet unborn will pole up the Missouri with Lewis and Clark, or climb the Sierras with James...
When prayer, rituals and ascetic life are just a means of self-indulgence, they are harmful rather than beneficial. This is quite obvious to people nowadays, when it is widely recognised that fixations are not the same as valuable and laudable observ...
That was the only reason I let her stay extra time at the park the next day. We were not waiting for anyone in particular to show up or hoping for anyone in particular to show up. I mean, she’s a . She didn’t care if she was wrestling a stick fro...
We raise our children, especially girls, to ignore their spontaneious reactions-we teach them not to rock the societal boat...By the time she is thirty, the valient little girl's "Ick!"-her tendency to respond, to rock the boat, when someone's action...
In this century history stopped paying attention to the old psychological orientation of reality. I mean, these days, character isn't destiny any more. Economy is destiny. Ideology is destiny. Bombs are destiny. What does a famine, a gas chamber, a g...
This is the first time I have heard ‘ethics’ in the mouth of a man. You and I are the only men on this ship that know its meaning. At one time in my life, I dreamed that I might someday talk with men who used such language, that I might lift myse...
This is what it means to be a woman in this world. Every step is a bargain with pain. Make your black deals in the black wood and decide what you’ll trade for power. For the opposite of weakness, which is not strength but hardness. I am a trap, but...
Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won't adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. That would mean that security is out of the questio...
You know those little moments when an unexpected act or a spoken word affects your heart with sweet, satiating intensity―a simple gesture that possesses deep, personal meaning beyond what anyone realizes? You know those tender moments? That's G...
Seriously, Jack, I think you might be the only guy in this city who hasn’t read his stuff. Collin McCann is like the Carrie Bradshaw of Chicago men.” “You mean Terry Bradshaw,” Jack corrected. “No, Carrie,” Wilkins repeated. “You know, ...
He fell in love with Manhattan's skyline, like a first-time brothel guest falling for a seasoned professional. He mused over her reflections in the black East River at dusk, dawn, or darkest night, and each haloed light-in a tower or strung along the...
