Ruthie started to cry at Julia's use of the word "hate," though Ruthie knew it was true, accurate. For a long time now it had been easier just to hate her sister. Easier to try to define the relationship with that simple emotion than to live with the...
Marriage has the power to set the course of your life as a whole. If your marriage is strong, even if all the circumstances in your life around you are filled with trouble and weakness, it won't matter. You will be able to move out into the world in ...
What excited and challenged her shipmates horrified the churched women and each set believed the other deeply, dangerously flawed. Although they had nothing in common with the views of each other, they had everything in common with one thing: the pro...
By making our defenseless planet the ultimate beneficiary of our economic activity, we align our values with a different set of motivations. When we begin to see life as an interdependent mesh, we place the survival of the human species on equal foot...
The girl sighed deeply and ever so slowly made her way down to the opposite end of the case. Using the metal tongs she passed over the golden yellow ladoo and reached for the darker pieces that Mrs. Singh usually set aside. I started to protest, but ...
Sometimes I sensed that the books I read in rapid succession had set up some sort of murmur among themselves, transforming my head into an orchestra pit where different musical instruments sounded out, and I would realize that I could endure this lif...
But she had learnt, in those solemn hours of thought, that she herself must one day answer for her own life, and what she had done with it; and she tried to settle that most difficult problem, how much was to be utterly merged in obedience to authori...
That was what I wanted, but I don't need it to be gone. I can love you and I can love life and bear the pain all at the same time. I think the pain might even make the rest better, the way a good setting can make a diamond look better.
God hates this wishful dreaming because it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. Those who dream of this idealized community demand that it be fulfilled by God, by others, and by themselves. They enter the community of Christians with their demand...
Usually, I set one foot in a library and I feel my own internal volume lower. A library is a physical equivalent of a sigh. It’s the silence, sure, but it’s also the certainty of all those books, the way they stand side by side with their still, ...
I never expect appreciation. I always set a deadline for the things I have to do to be a successful person, when I complete them, I give myself a piece of candy, a glass of tea and some free time to enjoy- that is how I honor my hardworking and appre...
Moreover, there was what Amy called “the cocksuckers’ contingent of the country”—what Danny knew as the dumber-than-dog-shit element, those bully patriots—and they were too set in their ways or too poorly educated (or both) to see beyond th...
Statues look like people, but people shouldn’t act like statues—you know, be set in their ways like stone. I make love like a sculptor paints, minus the wine, plus the grape juice. Suck me like a straw, rubber band legs.
Please don’t hug me. Please don’t hug me. But she did. And now Bram had two sets of black eyes glaring at him. Finally, he said out loud, “It’s not me! I swear!” Rhiannon laughed and leaned back from Bram. “So cute! Isn’t he cute, Berce...
Excellence in life, is like a play. For your real life play, the quality of the actors you bring on your life’s stage, determine your success. Always choose the best, most excellent actors.
Stories start in all sorts of places. Where they begin often tells the reader of what to expect as they progress. Castles often lead to dragons, country estates to deeds of deepest love (or of hate), and ambiguously presented settings usually lead to...
Houdini, the magician who debunked magic, could not bear to see the great rationalist [Arthur Conan] Doyle enchanted by ghosts and frauds. And so he did what any friend would: He set out to prove spiritualism false and rob his friend Doyle of the onl...
I believe in witches, Sophia,” his deep voice hypnotized her. “I hope you don’t burn me at the stake,” she murmured to him. “I don’t burn witches. I set them on fire,” Alistair whispered so low Sophia thought she had heard wrong.
What was it about the Draven brothers that had you doing anything they wished of you. It wasn't just their voice,it was everything, every tiny little supernatural molecule they possessed had you jumping to whatever beat they set. It was their sheer s...
Dear Lord," she prayed, "please help me to handle all the work You've set before me. I can only do this with You at my side. Amen.
According to most philosophers, God in making the world enslaved it. According to Christianity, in making it, He set it free. God had written, not so much a poem, but rather a play; a play he had planned as perfect, but which had necessarily been lef...
