I know you didn’t see the violence and need for control in him in the beginning, but I’m sure it was there. Nothing you did turned him into such an abusive man. And you … well, you just didn’t see your own value before that. It’s an easy th...
Because misery, and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will did it. I have no broken your heart - you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse ...
But it is no use to justify yourself. It is no good to explain. It is weak to be anecdotal. It is wise to conceal the past even if there is nothing to conceal. A man's power is in the half-light, in the half-seen movements of his hand and the unguess...
There is no right to punish. There is only the power to punish,' she wrote. 'A man is punished for his crime because the State is stronger than he; the great crime of War is not punished because beyond the individual there is mankind, and beyond mank...
If you are satisfied, you bring your satisfaction to the moment and fill the circumstances of your life with that satisfaction. If you are dissatisfied, however, no one and nothing can produce contentment for you.
When someone tells a man to be a man, they mean that there is a way to be a man. A man is not just a thing to be—it is also a way to be, a path to follow and a way to walk. Some try to make manhood mean everything. Others believe that it means noth...
That way I wouldn't have to see the guys in their walking shorts. They looked as if nothing had ever touched them- all well-mothered, protected, with a soft sheet of contentment. None of them had ever been in jail, or worked hard with their hands, or...
For all his secrecy and fear of being seen, he was touched that we had observed him so closely, and with such love. He loved that we knew him. This is one reason people need to believe in God -- because we want someone to know us, truly, all the way ...
Mum had a Charles-and-Diana wedding mug that had survived longer than the marriage itself. Mum had worshipped Princess Di and frequently lamented her passing. "Gone," she would say, shaking her head in disbelief. "Just like that. All that exercise fo...
Recognize your failures when they happen but don’t dwell on them. Instead, focus on the successes you have had in your life. If you’ve done it once, you can do it again. Build on that. Letting thoughts of past failures creep into your mindset are...
So I'd been captured? So I was starving? Did that mean I had to shrivel up and die? I could still slither. I could still hiss. Nothing had been stolen from me except my freedom. What I needed was a new plan.
He saw it in her eyes. The anguish, the frustration. The terrible nothing that clawed inside and sought to smother her. She knew. It was there, inside. She had been broken. Then she smiled. Oh, storms. She smiled . It was the single most beautiful th...
Living things aren't finished, you see. Everything they have ever been in contact with, each thought they have had, each person they have known - these things are still at work in them; nothing's finished. ("The Graveyard Reader")
There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest politi...
Tammy, werewulves act in ways that are pleasing only to themselves. They behave without a conscious... They are sick monsters who have permanently lost their self-control. Their intentions and motivations are never clear; they slaughter flocks and he...
The central question of any execution: do you want the hood on or off? Would you rather see it coming? Or would you rather simply drift away, cocooned in warm darkness, stinking of nothing but yourself? A kind, familiar place to hide in, just before ...
I forced myself to stop thinking about it. I went to the room in my brain where all my thoughts about Adam lived and disconnected the electricity and boarded up all the doors and windows, so nothing could get out. Obviously it was very unsightly. The...
If we didn't have strong feelings, how could we love or fight? When our flesh is cut, we bleed. When our heart is broken, we cry. There's nothing wrong with that. It only becomes a problem when it gets in the way of what you have to do. You can't cru...
To be the child of a conficted or reputed witch was inherently dangerous; in one pathetic case in Lorraine a young couple were both accused, and it emerged that they had decided to marry after attending an execution at the stake of their respective p...
I loved him in that moment more than I thought possible, but it would end when this night did. We might chase the phantoms of these feelings for a while afterward, but in the end we’ll concede defeat and move on. Nothing is meant to last past its n...
[D]on’t cling to your self-righteous suffering, let it go. . . . Nothing is too good to be true, let yourself be forgiven. To the degree you insist that you must suffer, you insist on the suffering of others as well. (90)