God could, had He pleased, have been incarnate in a man of iron nerves, the Stoic sort who lets no sigh escape him. Of His great humility He chose to be incarnate in a man of delicate sensibilities who wept at the grave of Lazarus and sweated blood i...
If there is a hard, high wall and an egg that breaks against it, no matter how right the wall or how wrong the egg, I will stand on the side of the egg. Why? Because each of us is an egg, a unique soul enclosed in a fragile egg. Each of us is confron...
The test of a progressive policy is not private but public, not just rising income and consumption for individuals, but widening the opportunities and what Amartya Sen calls the 'capabilities' of all through collective action. But that means, it must...
I believe in all human societies there is a desire to love and be loved, to experience the full fierceness of human emotion, and to make a measure of the sacred part of one's life. Wherever I've traveled--Kenya, Chile, Australia, Japan--I've found th...
Ever reviled, accursed, ne'er understood, Thou art the grisly terror of our age. "Wreck of all order," cry the multitude, "Art thou, & war & murder's endless rage." 0, let them cry. To them that ne'er have striven The 'truth that lies behind a word t...
Conservatives and those on the right are usually willing to settle for thinking themselves correct on political issues; those on the left have always needed to feel not so much that they are correct but that they are also good. Disagree with someone ...
A dog has no use for fancy cars or big homes or designer clothes. Status symbol means nothing to him. A waterlogged stick will do just fine. A dog judges others not by their color or creed or class but by who they are inside. A dog doesn't care if yo...
We have a bad habit of seeing books as sort of cheaply made movies where the words do nothing but create visual narratives in our heads. So too often what passes for literary criticism is "I couldn't picture that guy", or "I liked that part", or "thi...
To pray you open your whole self To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon To one whole voice that is you And know there is more That you can't see, can't hear Can't know except in moments Steadly growing, and in languages That aren't always sound but other ...
Symptoms of illness and distress, plus your feelings about them, can be viewed as messengers coming to tell you something important about your body or about your mind. In the old days, if a king didn't like the message he was given, he would sometime...
Carine McCandless: With almost a year having passed since Chris' disappearance my parents' anger had turned to desperation. Their guilt was giving way to pain. And pain seemed to bring them closer. Even their faces had changed. She convinces herself ...
Melville Crump: The man said there was a certain amount of money buried down in this park. Lennie Pike: That's right. It was under a big W. Say what is a big W? Ding Bell: If we find out, we'll send you a wire. Melville Crump: It's only a possibility...
Gordie: ...the main guy of the story is a fat kid that nobody likes named Davie Hogan. Vern: Like Charlie Hogan's brother. If he had one. Chris: Good Vern. Go on, Gordie. Gordie: Well this kid is our age but he's fat. Real fat. He weighs close to one...
Mason: I finally figured it out. It's like when they realized it was gonna be too expensive to actually build cyborgs and robots. I mean, the costs of that were impossible. They decided to just let humans turn themselves into robots. That's what's go...
Robert Frobisher: [narrating] Dinner of pheasant with Bordeaux rich as buttercream. How I love to listen to men of distinguished lives sing of past follies and glories. The only broken note in the entire evening was Ayrs' wife, Jocasta, excusing hers...
Mr. Bernstein: Isn't it wonderful? Such a party. Jedediah Leland: Yeah Mr. Bernstein: What's the matter? Jedediah Leland: Bernstein, these men who are now with the Inquirer, who were with the Chronicle until yesterday... [... ] Jedediah Leland: Berns...
Mr. Leuchtag: Come sit down. Have a brandy with us. Mrs. Leuchtag: To celebrate our leaving for America tomorrow. Carl: Oh, thank you very much. I thought you would ask me, so I brought the good brandy. And - a third glass! Mrs. Leuchtag: At last the...
[the Chief Bosun and Werner enter the petty officer's quarters] Pilgrim: Morning, Lieutenant. Chief Bosun: So, the petty officers sleep here. Twelve men. When one's on duty, the other sleeps in his stink. [Pilgrim and Frenssen laugh] Chief Bosun: Yea...
Insp. Thomas: [to his squad] He may be abroad, traveling on a false passport. What you're going to do now is to go down to the Passport Office. Get a complete list of every passport application for the last three months. Special Branch Detective: But...
Brian Clough: What are you doing? You weren't supposed to *accept* our resignations! Sam Longson: Shouldn't bloody well offer them, then, should you? Brian Clough: Look, you can't get rid of us. It would be a disaster for the club. For the whole of D...
Carl Showalter: Would it... kill you to say something? "No." That's the first thing you've said in the last four hours. That's a... that's fountain of conversation, man. That's a geyser. I mean, whoa daddy! Stand back, man. Shit. I'm sitting here dri...