The battlefield is symbolic of the field of life, where every creature lives on the death of another. A realization of the inevitable guilt of life may so sicken the heart, that like Hamlet, or like Arjuna, one may refuse to go on with it. On the oth...
every session I had no fewer than sixteen girls with “allergies” to dairy and wheat—cheese and bread basically—but also to garlic, eggplant, corn, and nuts. They had cleverly developed “allergies,” I believe, to the foods they had seen th...
I was coming up on a cross street when a man wearing a filthy suit stepped out from around the corner of the building ahead and directly into my path. Bent with age, he turned bleak red eyes to me and stared. Pressed with his chest to both hands he c...
On many counts, taking a boy like Rudy Steiner was robbery--so much life, so much to live for--yet somehow, I'm certain he would have loved to see the frightening rubble and the swelling of the sky on the night he passed away. He'd have cried and tur...
Inside the maize mill, the owners no longer had any use for a broom. The hungry people kept the floors cleaner than a wet mop. At the beginning of the month, the mill was packed full of those waiting for fallen scraps. The crowd would part long enoug...
Illium, his expression subdued as it had been for too many days, turned to her. “Mind if I have a go?” “Kick his ass.” Stripping off his shirt and boots, Illium held out his hand for one of Venom’s blades. Lips curving, Venom passed it over...
But sometimes things happen that no one hopes for. Events that cause everything you've worked towards, the life you've carefully constructed piece by piece, to come tumbling down all around you. No one is to blame, but you're left with a wound you ca...
Vronsky meanwhile, in spite of the complete fulfilment of what he had so long desired, was not completely happy. He soon felt that the realization of his longing gave him only one grain of the mountain of bliss he had anticipated. That realization sh...
In magic - and in life - there is only the present moment, the now. You can't measure time the way you measure the distance between two points. 'Time' doesn't pass. We human beings have enormous difficulty in focusing on the present; we're always thi...
With every day that passed, the boy's heart became more and more silent. It no longer wanted to know about things of the past or future; it was content simply to contemplate the desert, and to drink with the boy from the Soul of the World. The boy an...
When our poor, faultily sensitive vision can perceive a thing, we say that it is visible. When the nerves of touch can feel it, we say that it is tangible. Yet I tell you there are beings intangible to our physical sense, yet whose presence is felt b...
... Denny was in third place, behind two other cars. They drove past us, and when they came back around for the checkered flag, Denny was by himself; he won the race. When asked how he had overtaken two cars on the final lap, he simply smiled and sai...
These two things are almost all I want, but unfortunately, neither one is my strong suit. I am very strong on blame, and wish this were one of God's values, but trust, surrender? Letting go, forgiveness? Maybe just after a period of prayer, but then ...
And I was a Child again, watching the bright World. But the Spell broke when at this Juncture some Gallants jumped from the Pitt onto the Stage and behaved as so many Merry-Andrews among the Actors, which reduced all to Confusion. I laugh'd with them...
The death of , on July 21, 1899, was one of the most widely -- noted events of that year in the civilized world. It was also one of the most widely and profoundly regretted, -- the most deeply deplored. . To many thousands who realized the intellectu...
Was that me? Yes it was. Was that him? No it wasn't.. Just a trick of the woods! Just a moment, One peculiar passing moment. Must it all be either less or more, Either plain or grand? Is it always 'or'? Is it never 'and'? That's what woods are for: F...
Man, that’s a killer strategy, that is, an awesome way to persuade the incognoscenti that we’re not crazed hokum junkies, high on hackwork, trying to pimp our addled euphoria to anyone who passes. Yeah, vehement denial that we’ve got anything t...
We pass and leave you lying. No need for rhetoric, for funeral music, for melancholy bugle-calls. No need for tears now, no need for regret. We took our risk with you; you died and we live. We take your noble gift, salute for the last time those line...
You ain’t old yet but when you get old, all the women in the village start to look down on you when they find out you want to do something other than sweep the kitchen or cut up vegetables. Had this big starch mango tree when I was small. Anytime I...
When may did so, he found every cup and saucer, plate, vase, and bowl standing arranged across the floor like pieces in a scaled-up chess game. "The Whitstable family tree," Bryant explained, entering and setting down his tea tray. "It's the only way...
You survived as a child because others helped to maintain your life. It continues to be true today, even when you think you are abandoned, rejected, neglected, and unloved: the tomatoes you eat sustain you, the crossing guard stops the traffic so you...
