The next time you think you're perfect, try walking on water.
Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he'd had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen t...
- When you can give up something any time, as long as it's next Tuesday. - Peruvian Marching Powder. A stimulant that has the extraordinary effect that the more you do, the more you laugh out of context. - When everything you laugh at is miserable an...
Natalie was bored in her marriage. At first she could hardly admit it to herself. After all, they were a perfect match: similar backgrounds, same religion, similar professions (she was a school psychologist, he was a psychology professor). Didn't all...
The next morning we experienced our very first “full English breakfast,” which consisted of tea, orange juice, cookies, oatmeal, granola, berries, bananas, croissants, grapes, pineapples, prunes, yogurt, five kinds of cold cereal, eggs, hash brow...
It's a strange feeling, when you hear a good piece of music. It starts out kind of shaky, this hot, heavy knot in your chest. At first it's tiny, like a spot of light in a dark room, but then it builds, pouring through you. And the next thing you kno...
That's what's so stupid about the whole magic thing, you know. You spend twenty years learning the spell that makes nude virgins appear in your bedroom, and then you're so poisoned by quicksilver fumes and half-blind from reading old grimoires that y...
Maybe love was a myth anyhow, a brew of hormones and fantasy, evolution's way of getting men and women together long enough for them to procreate,back in the day when girls got pregnant at twelve, were pregnant or nursing for the next twenty years, a...
It took me years to realize that I could do all kinds of drastic acts like quitting jobs, relationships, towns (or all of the above), but what showed up at the next job, relationship, & town was still ME.
He has an interview going on, so if anyone asks you anything about anything, smile and lie." "So, if they ask how it feels to spend our evenings filing briefings from three years ago, we should say it's great? Atticusa asked sarcastically, as he pull...
I mean, that star over there is blinking at me madly now, but for how long? An hour or two, or for the next million years? And how long will we sit here like this? Just another moment, or the rest of our lives? You know which one I'd prefer...
The act was an exorcism of relief for Florentino Ariza, for when he put the violin back into its case and walked down the dead streets without looking back, he no longer felt that he was leaving the next morning but that he had gone away many years b...
They began work at 5:30 and quit at 7 at night. Children six years old going home to lie on a straw pallet until time to resume work the next morning! I have seen the hair torn out of their heads by the machinery, their scalps torn off, and yet not a...
When you're a 20-something-year-old athlete and you're getting a six-figure check every week, you're not thinking about next week. You're not thinking, 'I'm going to be broke,' or 'I'm going to need another job.' But I'll tell you, there are a lot of...
I traveled the state of Florida for two years campaigning. I have never met a job creator who told me that they were waiting for the next tax increase before they started growing their business. I've never met a single job creator who's ever said to ...
I know who I am as an artist and I know what my sound is, but I wanted to know what I could do in order to take it to that next level. So the experiences I had last year of moving to California and traveling to places like Rome and Nicaragua where I ...
We are drifting into some ugly parallels here, and if I'd written this kind of thing two years ago I'd pick up the New York Times and see myself mangled all over the Op-Ed page... And then beaten into a bloody coma the next evening by some hired thug...
Mia: [the Prime Minister has knocked on Mia's door looking for Natalie] You're not who I think you are, are you? Prime Minister: Yes, I'm afraid I am. And I'm sorry for all the cock-ups, my cabinet are absolute crap. We'll have to do better next year...
Willy Wonka: [Showing off his geese that lay golden eggs] They're laying overtime right now, for Easter. Mike Teevee: But Easter's over! Willy Wonka: [clapping a hand over Mike's mouth] Ssshhh! [quietly] Willy Wonka: They don't know that. I'm trying ...
One generation builds the street on which the next will walk.
The next mile is the only one a person really has to make.
