Saintliness is very odd. When people encounter it, they often take it for something else, something completely unlike it: indifference, mockery, scheming, coldness, insolence, perhaps even contempt. But they're mistaken, and that makes them furious. ...
As a child I had been taught to say my prayers at the start of every day, and so it did not seem an odd thing for me to stand out in the field and say "Oh God whatever happens today let it be under your perfect control.
He thought, I got wings on my eyes, and the thought was so odd and yet so pleasing to him that he felt suddenly that he was immensely special, that there could be no one like him in the world.
Suddenly I register that St. Clair is shorter than Josh. Much shorter. It’s odd I didn’t notice earlier, but he doesn’t carry himself like a short guy. Most are shy or defensive, or some messed-up combination of the two, but St. Clair is confid...
If the majority view, whether in government or in the scientific establishment, is wrong, toleration of dissent increases the odds that their errors will eventually be discovered. But even if the majority view is correct, as it often may be, it is mo...
The inability of Darwinian psychology to account for human reasoning is devastating to its pretensions to be a science. The prestige of science depends on the application of highly advanced practical and theoretical reason. A 'science' that is incomp...
If a man has to ask for your trust, it's a sure sign that you should not give it. Trust should be earned inherently, without any verbal demands. Trust is knowing a man's character, knowing truth, and relying on that character and truth even when the ...
He laughed a little, in an odd, nervous kind of way. "Because if I don't get going soon, the whole impetus may die--and if that happens, well, I really shall consider a long, restful plunge into insanity. Sometimes the abyss yawns very attractively.
It's odd to spend your vacation with someone else's music especially when you're alone. You're free to let loose, unobserved, but someone else has chosen the words you belt out in private, the rythms you can dance to like a fool.
No matter how great the initial chemistry is, if your values are on two different pages, the odds of your marriage working decrease significantly.
One has only to set a loved human being against the fact that we are all in peril all the time to get back a sense of proportion. What does anything matter compared to the reality of love and its span, so brief at best, maintained against such odds?
She grew up in the ordinary paradise of the English countryside. When she was five she walked to school, two miles, across meadows covered with cowslips, buttercups, daisies, vetch, rimmed by hedges full of blossom and then berries, blackthorn, hawth...
But then I sigh, with a piece of Scripture Tell them that God bids us to do evil for good; And thus I clothe my naked villany With odd old ends stolen out of Holy Writ; And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.
Sir Henry fixed him with a keen eye. 'Odd name, Tom Skatt - eh?' 'Thats right' 'You don't think we could be related?' Tom looked up at his great-great-great-uncle and smiled. 'I don't think so' 'No,' grinned Sir Henry "no, of course not
In all our lives, however, there are many days when we die a little, when we are wounded by loss or failure, or by fear, or by seeing the suffering of others for whom we are able to offer only pity, for whom we are powerless to offer aid, we are beyo...
How fishy on the fishiness scale? Ten is a stickleback and one is a whale shark." "A whale isn't a fish, Thursday." "A whale shark is--sort of." "All right, it's as fishy as a crayfish." "A crayfish isn't a fish." "A starfish, then." "Still not a fis...
It’s odd, isn’t it? People die every day and the world goes on like nothing happened. But when it’s a person you love, you think everyone should stop and take notice. That they ought to cry and light candles and tell you that you’re not alone...
We stared at the odd garment and wondered what it was for. 'What is it?' asked Larry at length. 'It's a bathing costume, of course,' said Mother. 'What on earth did you think it was?' 'It looks like a badly skinned whale,' said Larry, peering at it c...
What an odd thing it is to see an entire species -- billions of people -- playing with, listening to meaningless tonal patterns, occupied and preoccupied for much of their time by what they call 'music.' (-- The Overlords, from Arthur C. Clarke's Chi...
Although her eyes are neither golden nor heavenly blue, Terri Stambaugh has the vision of an angel, for she sees through you and knows your truest heart, but loves you anyway, in spite of all the ways that you have fallen from a state of grace.
Give the narrative a lighter tone than you think it deserves, dear boy, lighter than you think you can bear to give it," he instructed before I began to write, "because you won't find the truth of life in morbidity, only in hope.
