excitement is found along the road, not at the end, and likewise, peace is not a fixed point-except perhaps in the unwanted "rest in peace" sense. PEACE is the breathing space between destinations, between excitements, an occasional part of the journ...
Occasionally I looked up towards some vast old apartment with its shutters still open and where amphibious men and women, adapting themselves each evening to living in an element different from their daytime one, swam about slowly in the dense liquid...
But I can say you’re okay for an irreverent party boy with occasional moments of brilliance.” “Brilliant? You think I’m brilliant?” He threw his hands skyward. “You hear that, world? Sage says I’m brilliant.” “That’s not what I sa...
Occasionally, a flicker of curiosity would urge the pilots to turn their heads and glance out past the sharp metallic casing of their jets to gaze at the distant, inland desert. They could barely recognise anything less conspicuous than the many moun...
I closed my eyes and listened to the occasional chirps of tiny birds hidden in the trees around us, the bubbling of water over rocks down below, cicadas rattling a chorus off in the distance. All sounds of the world carrying on like it always had. So...
No one, from pontiffs to professors, has a monopoly on the truth. In the end, we are all just travelers--not scientists or mystics or any one brand of thinker. By nature, we are scientists and mystics, reductionists and holists, left-brained and righ...
And if you learn only one thing from the ensuing maybe let it be this: the police were not merely interested observers who occasionally witnessed criminality and were then basically compelled to make an arrest, rather the police had the special abili...
My religious friends - and my friends were almost all Catholics or Protestants or occasionally something more exotic like Jewish or Greek Orthodox - were convinced that God had a "plan" for us, and since God was good, it was a good plan, which we wer...
Let me tell you something, honey. When your boobs fall south and that pretty skin of yours looks like you’ve been tanning in a nuclear war zone, you’ll see what I mean about independence. When the looks are gone, all you’ve got left is your spi...
Once again, I was conscious of the paradox of the compound: that here, at the heart of the unfolding events, we could catch no more than a glimpse of them. Fires were burning all over Dili; the smell was in our nostrils from the moment we wok up, and...
Black is the absence of all color. White is the presence of all colors. I suppose life must be one or the other. On the whole, though, I think I would prefer color to its absence. But then black does add depth and texture to color. Perhaps certain sh...
Amy [Winehouse] increasingly became defined by her addiction. Our media though is more interested in tragedy than talent, so the ink began to defect from praising her gift to chronicling her downfall. The destructive personal relationships, the blood...
From my first stab at second base, I became obsessively concerned for my vaginal upkeep. I began shaving the day after I felt my first tongue down my throat. The first buzz was a disaster, causing horrifically itchy dull razor breakout that made me l...
At paces that might stun and dismay the religious jogger, the runners easily kept up all manner of chatter and horseplay. When they occasionally blew by a huffing fatty or an aging road runner, they automatically toned down the banter to avoid overwh...
Christopher McCandless: The sea's only gifts are harsh blows, and occasionally the chance to feel strong. Now I don't know much about the sea, but I do know that that's the way it is here. And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily t...
Ernst Blofeld: Siamese fighting fish, fascinating creatures. Brave but of the whole stupid. Yes they're stupid. Except for the occasional one such as we have here who lets the other two fight. While he waits. Waits until the survivor is so exhausted ...
Dr. Sayer: His gaze is from the passing of bars so exhausted, that it doesn't hold a thing anymore. For him, it's as if there were thousands of bars and behind the thousands of bars no world. The sure stride of lithe, powerful steps, that around the ...
Whenever a journalist wrote an article about him that was critical in nature... he would invite them to a meal and at first they assumed they were in trouble for being critical of him. But they soon learned after arrival at his house for a meal that ...
When a physical illness or other adverse circumstance arises, humans tend to add to the problem by worrying and increasing the mental anxiety in their situation. Let’s take illness as an example. We have to face the fact that life is not always per...
There was a magic about the sea. People were drawn to it. People wanted to love by it, swim in it, play in it, look at it. It was a living thing that as as unpredictable as a great stage actor: it could be calm and welcoming, opening its arms to embr...
Outside of note passing and the occasional tight-lipped kiss after school events, "going together" in seventh grade was pretty meaningless. You couldn't drive, had nowhere to go, and either weren't allowed or couldn't afford to do anything. I was kin...
