He was a compact, clearcut man, with precise features, a lot of very soft black hair, and thoughtful dark brown eyes. He had a look of wariness, which could change when he felt relaxed or happy, which was not often in these difficult days, into a smi...
What a peculiar civilisation this was: inordinately rich, yet inclined to accrue its wealth through the sale of some astonishingly small and only distantly meaningful things, a civilisation torn and unable sensibly to adjudicate between the worthwhil...
Time has its revenges, but revenge seems so often sour. Wouldn’t we all do better not trying to understand, accepting the fact that no human being will ever understand another, not a wife with a husband, nor a parent a child? Perhaps that’s why m...
And sometimes, and only in spring, a dove from the river's soft vale of lilies will fly as close to you as trust, and a calm in the great reds of autumn will, as often as you need, lie down beside you, raising a brow you've known above the eyes of th...
I often laugh at a dog that chases its own tail. But aren’t there some people out there who spend a lot of time “chasing their own tails?” Well, maybe those people should seriously consider getting their tails surgically removed. It did wonders...
I think you will agree that life's plans are not always tied up in neat little packages. Occasionally we find ourselves at unexpected crossroads with more than one opportunity from which to choose. Time itself is often the best indicator of which dec...
Interestingly, the historic case of 1868 in England that first defined obscenity-known among lawyers as the Hicklin decision- evolved out of the prosecution of a pamphlet describing how priests were often so sexually aroused while hearing women’s c...
Dissimulation, secretiveness, appear a necessity to the melancholic. He has complex, often veiled relations with others. These feelings of superiority, of inadequacy, of baffled feeling, of not being able to get what one wants, or even name it proper...
It strikes me as unChristian that we often have more charitable attitudes toward ideological allies than we do toward brothers and sisters in Christ with whom we disagree on matters of politics.
To look back before 1800 is to enter another world, one where the number of institutions for the mad was a tiny fraction of today's and what we would now call mental disorders were often understood as religious ecstasies or diabolical possessions.
Writers often have the cleanest windows, floors, fridges and toilets, the most up-to-date filing system or the best record for returning calls or e-mails because, in the moment, just about any task seems more palatable than sitting down to write.” ...
Remember that your fans are your lifeblood. See that you know who they are, and give them a reason to follow you. Be sure to thank them, often, for caring enough to support you. They’re responsible for your success just as much as you are.
Quite often it's not about what is said, but what isn't. And even when it's spoken, read between the lines. Listening with the heart is just as important as hearing with the mind.
If you don't pray often, you won't gain a love for praying. Prayer is work, and therefore it is not very appealing to our natural sensibilities. But the simple rule for prayer is this: Begin praying and your taste for prayer will increase. The more y...
To boldly go where no man has gone before” says the iconic Captain’s Oath in the Star Trek series. Humanity seeks to live adventures, either by conquering mountains or the seas, or by watching war movies, space adventures, fantasies and thrillers...
I was the outsider in Fernhall House, but they were all outsiders really. Outside society. Outside time. You hear people say that those in asylums and care facilities are out of their minds. But in truth their minds are often the one thing they are o...
He knew himself well enough to know his own faults. Impatient and judgmental and stubborn and often too quick to act: he would try never to crush her, never to overwhelm her or bend her to his will, but if she did not demand only the best from him, i...
When you live with voices in your head, you are drawn inextricably to voices outside your head. Very often the voices work to confirm your worst suspicions. Or think of things you could never have imagined! There are only so many hours of the day to ...
Love can often be misguided and do as much harm as good, but respect can do only good. It assumes that the other person's stature is as large as one's own, his rights as reasonable, his needs as important.
Sometimes you’ll hear, ‘People don’t change.’ This is true more often than it ought to be, but listen again: ‘People don’t change.’ It says ‘don’t,’ not ‘can’t.’ (316)
Perhaps the most important thing I learned was about democracy, that democracy is not our government, our constitution, our legal structure. Too often they are enemies of democracy.
