Death was the only absolute value in my world. Lose life and one would lose nothing again for ever. I envied those who could believe in a God and I distrusted them. I felt they were keeping their courage up with a fable of the changeless and the perm...
She spent the foggy day in endless, aimless walking, for it seemed to her that if she moved quickly enough she would escape the fear that hunted her. It was a vague and shadowy fear of something cruel and stupid that had caught her and would never le...
Think of the long trip home. Should we have stayed at home and thought of here? Where should we be today? Is it right to be watching strangers in a play in this strangest of theatres? What childishness is it that while there's a breath of life in our...
But saints and angels behold that glory of God which consists in the beauty of His holiness; and it is this sight only that will melt and humble the hearts of men, wean them from the world, draw them to God, and effectually change them. A sight of th...
He murmured her name, tenderly taking her face in his hands. “I love you,” he said, his voice low and fervent. “I love you with everything I am, everything I’ve been, and everything I hope to be.” “I love you with my past, and I love you ...
Is there anything more pathetic than a flower that doesn’t get enough sunlight and dies, because it couldn’t get out of bed until four in the afternoon?
I always felt that Jim Morrison was a terrible name for the front man of The Doors. No, for a band called The Doors, a name like Rusty Hinge would have been more appropriate.
She thought men were saviors... ...And she looked for more in them than what they were... Only to rescue herself from those she wished would rescue her... And isn't that the most tragic lie... The lie where we tell what we wished were true and believ...
As Atwood concludes after a random and informal sampling, men and women differ markedly in the 'scope of their threatenability': 'Why do men feel threatened by woman?' I asked a male friend of mine....'[M]en are bigger, most of the time...and they ha...
There lived a redheaded man who had no eyes or ears. He didn’t have hair either, so he was called a redhead arbitrarily. He couldn’t talk because he had no mouth. He had no nose either. He didn’t even have arms or legs. He had no stomach, he ha...
I saw myself.... In the time I watched, I saw strength—and frailty. Pride and vanity, courage and fear. Of wisdom, a little. Of folly, much. Of intentions, many good ones; but many more left undone. In this, alas, I saw myself a man like any other....
The world is full of men who want to be right, when actually the secret of a man's strength and his pathway to true honor is his ability to admit fault when he has failed. God wants to fill the church with men who can say they are wrong when THEY ARE...
As we drove off into the moonless night, raindrops danced through our headlights like the fireflies of my childhood. I silently cursed the frailty of happiness and doubted whether it ever existed for me. I could remember happier times, though, and th...
Ineluctable modality of the visible: at least that if no more, thought through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn and seawrack, the nearing tide, that rusty boot. Snotgreen, bluesilver, rust: coloured signs. Limits of the d...
Composure and self-restraint were not only desirable characteristics in a woman, they were essental. As my mother put it later, it was bad enough having to worry yourself sick every time your husband went up in an airplane; now, she was being told, s...
So you got rid of your astonishment that someone could write so much more dynamically than you. You stopped cherishing your aloneness and poetic differentness to your delicately flat little bosom. You said: she's to good to forget. How about making h...
The adult world may seem a cold and empty place, with no fairies and no Father Christmas, no Toyland or Narnia, no Happy Hunting Ground where mourned pets go, and no angels - guardian or garden variety. But there are also no devils, no hellfire, no w...
And, finally, I noticed that a hot flush was spreading over me, and that the look in his eyes was doing more to me than Jesse's kisses had. Dimitri was quiet and distant sometimes, but he also had a dedication and an intensity that I'd never seen in ...
In a few more days I'd anticipated telling Veronika that our injections had cured her heart condition. But in light of her unscheduled departure form Villette my telling that particular lie will not be required. The majority of people who attempt sui...
So, how is it that you don’t have a girlfriend?” I asked boldly. Joel shrugged. “Have you ever had a girlfriend?” There was no way that he’d never had a girlfriend. He shrugged again. “You’re not serious.” “You’re surprised?” �...
Yes?" she asked, eyeing me guardedly. I struck out a hand and said "Shake." Arra stared at the hand, then into my unfocused eyes. "One good fight doesn't make you a warrior," she said. "Shake!" I repeated angrily. "And if I don't?" she asked. "I'll g...
