Scarlett's mind went back through the years to the still hot noon at Tara when grey smoke curled above a blue-clad body and Melanie stood at the top of the stairs with Charles' sabre in her hand. Scarlett remembered that she had thought at the time: ...
This primary question of life organization is immensely important. If making money is the main goal, a person can often forget what his or her true interests are or how he or she wants to deserve recognition from others. It is much more difficult to ...
And then of course there was her opinion to consider. Would she ever care to entertain the thought of kissing him, let alone marrying him? He was willing to bet his life that she wasn't. Not yet anyway. Therefore, he had made up his mind. He had devi...
Where faith commences, science ends. Both these arts of the human mind must be strictly kept apart from each other. Faith has its origin in the poetic imagination; knowledge, on the other hand, originates in the reasoning intelligence of man. Science...
He looked up to the gods but never accepted their eternal superiority. For better or worse, plotting their overthrow was the only aspiration that stoked the fires of destiny. Such an exalted ambition was worthy of a man who had long accomplished the ...
When we observe trials and tribulations in our world, there's even more reason to lighten the heavy load. Sometimes life gets tough and it's disheartening. Never mind happiness; what we genuinely need is joy! God didn't intend for us to be sad or ser...
So what’s your name?” the stranger asked. Tarrah pulled his shirt away from her head and held out her hand. “Tarrah. Tarrah Reid.” He slipped his hand into hers, his cheeks stiffening as he held back a smile. Tarrah sighed, knowing exactly wh...
...You believe that the kind of story you want to tell might be best received by the science fiction and fantasy audience. I hope you're right, because in many ways this is the best audience in the world to write for. They're open-minded and intellig...
The door to heaven is open to us at any time we are willing to accept that we are of absolutely no importance. The bars of our own hell - the “mind-forged manacles” as Blake put it - are our attempts to justify ourselves or prove our self-worth. ...
Then a calm fell upon him. The gushing began from all sorts of places, all over his body. He heard pleasurable little giggles on the outer edges of his mind, in the dark creases behind his thoughts. He felt good, better than he’d felt in years. As ...
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...
I'd never wanted to consume another body as rabidly as I did when he was inside me, but even like this, I could never seem to get close enough to the parts of him I wanted to feel. And it was with that thought in my mind that the delicious ratcheting...
They say it's the woman's prerogative to change her mind. But that's wrong. Guys are the one who get to say, "You know what? I don't want to be with you after all." They get to say it after they've sucked all the sweetness out of you, just like those...
(Watching her) was a little like watching water lilies; rather more like smelling a dinner he was not allowed to eat. Was it possible to be starved for so long as to forget the taste of food, for the pangs of hunger to burn out like ash? It seemed so...
But this is what I know about people getting ready to walk of the edge of their own lives: they want someone to know how they got there. Maybe they want to know that when they dissolve into earth and water, that last fragment will be saved, held in s...
But I can say you’re okay for an irreverent party boy with occasional moments of brilliance.” “Brilliant? You think I’m brilliant?” He threw his hands skyward. “You hear that, world? Sage says I’m brilliant.” “That’s not what I sa...
I relinquished myself to existence pure and simple, thinking absolutely nothing—as if my mind were merely an echo chamber for the music, as if it contained only ether or at most a vaguely pleasant odor as of roses preserved between the pages of a b...
A brick could be used to help you to become a karate master, like I am. It’s easy to punch the brick and break it, but can you punch a brick, shatter it, and then using only your mind repiece the brick back together into one cohesive unit—and do ...
More than anything, this place feels familiar. I bury my hands in the hot sand and think about the embodiment of memory or, more specifically, our natural ability to carry the past in our bodies and minds. Individually, every grain of sand brushing a...
The darkest secret of this country, I am afraid, is that too many of its citizens imagine that they belong to a much higher civilization somewhere else. That higher civilization doesn’t have to be another country. It can be the past instead—the U...
Go to the cops then!” I shout. “But mind if I ask what you plan on telling them? Because saying two dead teenagers came to you in the middle of the night and told you something or someone is going to kill you is only going to get you locked in a ...