I hate it when people say they’re trying to be your friend. You shouldn’t have to try to be somebody’s friend. Either you like someone or you don’t. Either you want them as a friend or not. Making friends isn’t like trying for the lead in t...
My parents raised me that you never ask people about their reproductive plans. “You don’t know their situation,” my mom would say. I considered it such an impolite question that for years I didn’t even ask myself. Thirty-five turned into fort...
writing home" here in the wilderness of australia writing home becomes easy in spite of the spreading wild fires there is less heat, more certainty. writing home, writing this i think of those without real homes– our city, people say, provides hous...
My habit would have been to veer towards the dark - to prove I was something; edgy, or maybe to prove that I was cognisant of the dark side. Now, with age and confidence, I can say, yeah, that's true, but I am cognisant of the fact that people can do...
I've never been willing to lie about my age. Why on earth would I want to tell people I'm 35, which I'm not, and have them say, 'Oh that's nice,' when I could tell them I'm 47, which I am, and have them look at me and go, 'Whoa!'. I'm not afraid of a...
For a lot of people, well-meaning teaching has made poetry seem arcane, difficult, a kind of brown-knotting medicine that might be good for you but doesn't taste so good. So I tried to make a collection of poetry that would be fun. And that would bri...
He respected the power of faith, the benevolence of churches, the strength religion gave so many people . . . and yet, for him, the one intellectual suspension of disbelief that was imperative if one were truly going to "believe" had always proved to...
God is angry with man. Unless we believe and repent we shall all be damned. It is impossible, indeed, for its advocates even to say this without instantly contradicting themselves. Their doctrine frightens them. They explain in various ways that a gr...
Even now, it's still hard for him to say it. I don't blame him. It's an icky word. Why couldn't whoever was in charge of naming things call cancer 'sugar' and sugar, 'cancer'? People might not eat so much of the stuff then. And it's so much more plea...
I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: "He is nothing but a boy -- a little boy!
I don't understand why people never say what they mean. It's like the immigrants who come to a country and learn the language but are completely baffled by idioms. (Seriously, how could anyone who isn't a native English speaker 'get the picture,' so ...
Besides, two kinds of people have the courage to make someone else's decisions: the hero, who comes to your rescue when you can't even cry out for help, and the tyrant. The only difference between them is the hero listens. As soon as you can talk, he...
They say that people fall in and out of love, but do they, too, fall in hate? Or fall into indifference? It has hindered men for ages the notion that one falls in love rather than decides to truly love, the notion that his lack of control, on the B-s...
One of the biggest contradictions in self-proclaimed open-mindedness is to say that we're all one but when a true bigot comes around tell him we're all different. It's usually the case that neither side is correct. One might have the right to do some...
I, Lexi Anderson, am proud to say that I do, indeed, have a great personality. And it's only a matter of time before the Beautiful People will be wishing they had great personalities, too. Good luck with that, oh Beautiful Ones. Because we Great Girl...
A vision inspires, aligns, and directs. it says to other people, "here is what I am up to, come and play in my sandbox!
That’s what money will buy you, in America,” Brown had said, firmly. “People say Americans are materialistic. But do you know why?” “Why?” asked Milgrim, more concerned with this uncharacteristically expansive mode of expression on Brown�...
Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world," he said wisely one day, "but people don't know what it is like or how to make it. Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen until you make them happen. I am going to try ...
He die one day, and then he go above of my head to live with your father." He weared the long hair, and after he died, the first day he come back here for to say hello to the peoples." He nice, the Jesus.
Scared people don’t really mean what they say, they’re just looking for ways to rationalize everything so they have someone or something to blame. They need to have a reason for what’s happening because when they have that they can take comfort...
I knew you read the in the vac," he said in a low voice. Maurice felt uneasy. "Then you understand - without me saying more - " "How do you mean?" Durham could not wait. People were all around them, but with eyes that had gone intensely blue he whisp...