According to most philosophers, God in making the world enslaved it. According to Christianity, in making it, He set it free. God had written, not so much a poem, but rather a play; a play he had planned as perfect, but which had necessarily been lef...
As natural selection acts by competition, it adapts the inhabitants of each country only in relation to the degree of perfection of their associates; so that we need feel no surprise at the inhabitants of any one country, although on the ordinary vie...
The media not only fans our fears, it comforts us in our hubris. Nearly every scare story comes with a Message: You can take control. You can do something to keep bad things from happening to your children and to keep life from throwing you curveball...
--what's really unique about maternal anxiety today is our belief that if something goes wrong with or for our children, it's a reflection on us as mothers. Because we believe we should be able to control life so perfectly that we can keep bad things...
What kind of choice is it, really, when motherhood forces you into a delicate balancing act -- not just between work and family, as the equation is typically phrased, but between your premotherhood and postmotherhood identities? What kind of choice i...
There is a theory that men do not need Paganism because they have endless avenues of societal power available. Why use spells when one can get a bank loan with little trouble? The world already bends over backward to accommodate men, so why perfect t...
Do you know how hard it is to paint kindness?” She leaned her hip against a desk in the corner of the room, still watching me. “It’s the only part of a person I really want to capture. Everything else seems to get lost in layers of deception or...
Her problem is with pretty,” Tennyson said. "She thinks I’ll need all these dresses in college. Like I would ever in a billion years pledge a sorority. I’ll pack a few of these to be ironic, though. I can wear them to, like, truck stops at nigh...
The compass rose is nothing but a star with an infinite number of rays pointing in all directions. It is the one true and perfect symbol of the universe. And it is the one most accurate symbol of . Spread your arms in an embrace, throw your head back...
Cole gets up and then says, “Adam. Five texts. I can read them to you.” He pauses. “Unless they’re personal.” I roll my eyes. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m pretty sure he’s desperately in love with my sister.” Cole ...
I like her. The pixie is going to be my friend. I know it like I know I’m not going to see Mr. Keane today. I will be her friend, while plotting to either betray her if she’s untrustworthy for the company, or be betrayed by her if I slip up and s...
Sometimes when you pick up your child you can feel the map of your own bones beneath your hands, or smell the scent of your skin in the nape of his neck. This is the most extraordinary thing about motherhood - finding a piece of yourself separate and...
When you have two notes from two different performances Auto-Tuned, it sounds like a car horn. And then you add harmonies, and it starts to sound like baby seals honking." - Tom Lord-Alge on Auto-Tune
But all those weeks with Nate, however fake they might have been, did do one thing for me. Whether the rest of world saw me that way, I knew now that I was strong, and I was beautiful, just the way I was. And girls like me needed gorgeous clothes too...
I kissed him and let that emotion consume me, to settle the pain that had risen inside my soul—to heal the pain I knew he felt. I let it consume and override the doubt that all we really needed was one another. That this empty hole could be filled ...
Enjoy the movie. I hear the guy gets the girl” I said, my tone bold and flirtatious. “Which guy?” She laughed, playing along. I could hear her smile through the phone. It felt good to make her smile. Really good. I paused before answering, “T...
But then again, if you don't imagine, nothing ever happens at all. Imagining isn't perfect. You can't get all the way inside someone else. I could never have imagined Margo's anger at being found, or the story she was writing over. But imagining bein...
I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the li...
A couple of hours after Sunset Michael Robartes returned and told me that I would have to learn the steps of an exceedingly antique dance, because before my initiation could be perfected I had to join three times in a magical dance, for rhythm was th...
The pastor concluded by saying, 'Even if you have always had it perfect: loving parents, a loving spouse, and you've never been hurt or let down, that's great but it's still a poor representation of the love that God offers you. God will always love ...
It is a law of nature we overlook, that intellectual versatility is the compensation for change, danger, and trouble. An animal perfectly in harmony with its environment is a perfect mechanism. Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and ins...
