So I found myself telling my own stories. It was strange: as I did it I realised how much we get shaped by our stories. It's like the stories of our lives make us the people we are. If someone had no stories, they wouldn't be human, wouldn't exist. A...
When I'm playing a character, I am never allowed to explicitly state the the takeaway message of the scenes I'm performing—after all, part of the dramatic conflict is that the person I'm portraying doesn't really know it yet.
Right now I want a word that describes the feeling that you get--a cold sick feeling, deep down inside--when you know something is happening that will change you, and you don't want it to, but you can't stop it. And you know, for the first time, for ...
Somebody becomes an enemy if you personalize the unconsciousness that is the ego. Non-reaction is not weakness but strength. Another word for non-reaction is forgiveness. To forgive is to overlook, or rather to look through. You look through the ego ...
Everybody should have their own personal logo. Mine is a smiley face that’s winking, as if I’m passing on secret knowledge. But it’s not like I tell just anybody. My secrets are so sought after that the NSA is always whispering at me to try to ...
Many people pretend to be in thought, proving thought to be a beautiful thing. But the bald man doesn’t need a comb, the tiger doesn’t need weapons, the fool doesn’t need thought. The person with no needs is practically a sage, but the sage als...
NOEL: And even when I don't stay up until midnight, I still enjoy the tradition of New Year's resolutions. What can I say? I like setting personal goals and challenging myself to improve. I suppose I could do it on any day of the year, but the New Ye...
The rivers had been drained overnight and what was left were things no person should have to image let alone see. She had been smart enough to stay away. But, other humans— were curious. They saw and the image planted in their heads made them bait ...
I would often sit in the corner of the room wearing Dad's massive headphones, carefully replaying the records time after time. It was something I did frequently throughout my childhood with music, comedy and film, inspiring my own creative imaginatio...
Like Naokuo, I'm not really sure what it means to love another person. Though she meant it a little differently. I do want to try my best though. I have to, or else I won't know where to go. Like you said before, Naoko and I have to save each other. ...
People from context cultures tend to view personal bonds and informal agreements as far more binding than any formal contract. People from content cultures don't believe the deal is finalized until everyone has signed on the dotted line. And therein ...
The fraudulence paradox was that the more time and effort you put into trying to appear impressive or attractive to other people, the less impressive or attractive you felt inside -- you were a fraud. And the more of a fraud you felt like, the harder...
Certainly I believe that God gave us life for happiness, not misery. Humanity, I am sure, will never be made lazy or indifferent by an excess of happiness. Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through ...
Pain produces progress. So if you truly love me, you will try to hurt me as much as you can. If you really want me to grow as a person, you will water me with betrayal, abuse, neglect, derision, thievery, and possibly even torture.
Love draws you out of your cocoon of self-absorption to attune to others. Love allows you to really see another person, holistically, with care, concern, and compassion.
And upon his return, Gherkins, who had always considered his uncle as a very top-hatted sort of person, actually saw him take from his handkerchief-drawer an undeniable automatic pistol. It was at this point that Lord Peter was apotheosed from the st...
It is not because men’s desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak. There is no natural connection between strong impulses and a weak conscience. The natural connection is the other way. To say that one person’...
the only way in which a human being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject, is by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mi...
The desire we so often hear expressed today for “episcopal figures,” “priestly men,” “authoritative personalities” springs frequently enough from a spiritually sick need for the admiration of men, for the establishment of visible human au...
After dinner, at five o’clock, the crew distributed folding canvas cots to the passengers, and each person opened his bed wherever he could find room, arranged it with the bedclothes from his petate, and set the mosquito netting over that. Those wi...
I don't think you have ever really inhabited a city until you have walked down the street and seen every single person, no matter how unlikely or different from yourself, how disheveled or foreign, as a potential ally or recruit.
