Death, there will be death, aye. Your lordship lost a son at the Red Wedding. I lost four upon the Blackwater. And why? Because the Lannisters stole the throne. Go to King’s Landing and look on Tommen with your own eyes, if you doubt me. A blind ma...
For my own part I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey, who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the life of his keeper; or from that old baboon, who, descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade ...
How miserably hypocritical, you might say, but no sooner am I offered a chance to flee Hell than I yearn to stay. Few families hold their relations as closely as do prisons. Few marriages sustain the high level of passion that exists between criminal...
As an undergraduate student in psychology, I was taught that multiple personalities were a very rare and bizarre disorder. That is all that I was taught on ... It soon became apparent that what I had been taught was simply not true. Not only was I me...
If the meaning of life has become doubtful, if one's relations to others and to oneself do not offer security, then fame is one means to silence one's doubts. It has a function to be compared with that of the Egyptian pyramids or the Christian faith ...
I want to write a book called, “Son, I’m dying,” where I visualize the day my estranged dad calls me out of the blue to tell me he is dying, and in as many ways as possible I’ll offer up various responses to that.
Why have you been staring at me ever since we met? Because I’m not the Gail Wynand you’d heard about. You see, I love you. And love is exception-making. If you were in love you’d want to be broken, trampled, ordered, dominated, because that’s...
What happens if your choice is misguided?' I ask, softly. Miss Moore takes a pear from the bowl and offers us the grapes to devour. 'You must try to correct it.' 'But what if it’s too late? What if you can’t?' There's a sad sympathy in Miss Moore...
Where was his knife, upon which he relied? He had cut cheese for their noonday meal, and had packed the knife away with the cheese. Aillas said: 'Sir, before we continue with this matter, may I offer you a bite of cheese?' 'I care for no cheese, thou...
The gospel has done its work in us when we crave God more than we crave everything else in life and when seeing His kingdom advance in the lives of others gives us more joy than anything we could own. When we see Jesus as greater than anything the wo...
The house is a normal-sized house, but once you step foot in the door, you are confronted with “The Dome.” Perfectly round, this room is one continuous curved wall of books. A copper dome sits on top with four stained glass windows fitted tight t...
Aye, we are. Ye told me that ye loved me, and that this is where ye wished to be. I told ye that I wished for ye to remain here with me. I offered a betrothal, if ye’ll recall, when ye were ready. But I neglected to tell ye the most important thing...
But the economic meltdown should have undone, once and for all, the idea of poverty as a personal shortcoming or dysfunctional state of mind. The lines at unemployment offices and churches offering free food includes strivers as well as slackers, hab...
But you love books, then,” Aunt Queen was saying. I had to listen. “Oh, yes,” Lestat said. “Sometimes they are the only thing that keeps me alive.” “What a strange thing to say at your age,” she laughed. “No, but one can feel desperat...
Young women today feel vulnerable to judgment; if a harsh sentence is passed (or even suspected or projected), it is not her reputation that suffers so much as the stability of her moral universe. They did not have long to explore the sexual revoluti...
When we want to help the poor, we usually offer them charity. Most often we use charity to avoid recognizing the problem and finding the solution for it. Charity becomes a way to shrug off our responsibility. But charity is no solution to poverty. Ch...
I gave my heart to a man who loved me, who wanted to be with me. Who ultimately was afraid of all I offered. I didn’t understand why he sabotaged our future at the time – cheating on me, again, as we were making final plans to move in together. B...
She was at that crucial age when a women begins to regret having stayed faithful to a husband she never really loved, when the glowing sunset colors of her beauty offer her one last, urgent choice between maternal and feminine love. At such a moment ...
The store of fairy tales, that blue chamber where stories lie waiting to be rediscovered, holds out the promise of just those creative enchantments, not only for its own characters caught in its own plotlines; it offers magical metamorphoses to the o...
The Four Noble Truths are pragmatic rather than dogmatic. They suggest a course of action to be followed rather than a set of dogmas to be believed. The four truths are prescriptions for behavior rather than descriptions of reality. The Buddha compar...
Never assume that the person you are dealing with is weaker or less important than you are. Some people are slow to take offense, which may make you misjudge the thickness of their skin, and fail to worry about insulting them. But should you offend t...