I saw behind me those who had gone, and before me, those who are to come. I looked back and saw my father, and his father, and all our fathers, and in front, to see my son, and his son, and the sons upon sons beyond. And their eyes were my eyes. As I...
How are you feeling, man?" he asks me. "Great," I tell him, and it is purely the truth. Doves clatter up out of a bare tree and turn at the same instant, transforming themselves from steel to silver in the snow-blown light. I know at that moment that...
The image that comes to mind is a boxing ring. There are times when...you just want that bell to ring, but you're the one who's losing. The one who's winning doesn't have that feeling. Do you have the energy and strength to face life? Life can ask mo...
As a leftover sixties liberal, I believe that the long arm and beady eyes of the government have no place in our bedrooms, our kitchens, or the backseats of our parked cars. But I also feel that the immediate appointment of a Special Pastry Prosecuto...
Occasionally, in the stillness of a taxi or an airplane, she would catalog the pleasures she had lost. Cigarettes. Chewing gum. Strong mint toothpaste. Any food with hard edges or sharp corners that could pierce or abrade the inside of her mouth: pot...
When I consider that the nobler animal have been exterminated here - the cougar, the panther, lynx, wolverine, wolf, bear, moose, dear, the beaver, the turkey and so forth and so forth, I cannot but feel as if I lived in a tamed and, as it were, emas...
What should we do?", I asked, and I had a pained feeling I thought was the beginning of love. In those early months we clung to each other with a rather silly desperation, because, in spite of everything my mother or Mrs Jordan could say, there was n...
Peace is the gift of God. Do you want peace? Go to God. Do you want peace in your families? Go to God. Do you want peace to brood over your families? If you do, live your religion, and the very peace of God will dwell and abide with you, for that is ...
I recalled that inward sensation I had experienced: for I could recall it, with all its unspeakable strangeness. I recalled the voice I had heard; again I questioned whence it came, as vainly as before: it seemed in ME--not in the external world. I a...
I often feel the pressure, from my peers and others, to come out and “take a stand” on a moral or social issue. Typically, I refuse to do so, or at least I refuse to do so in a way that will please my critics. On so many of the hard and divisive ...
I remembered the malangs of Shah Jamal, the dirty, shirtless renouncers with ratty beards and dreads and bare chests covered in necklaces of prayer beads, throwing around their arms in Charlie Manson dances and whipping out their old ID cards to say ...
What I'm feeling, I think, is joy. And it's been some time since I've felt that blinkered rush of happiness, This might be one of those rare events that lasts, one that'll be remembered and recalled as months and years wind and ravel. One of those sw...
The minute you land in New Orleans, something wet and dark leaps on you and starts humping you like a swamp dog in heat, and the only way to get that aspect of New Orleans off you is to eat it off. That means beignets and crayfish bisque and jambalay...
as i discovered, the path to sobriety is a precarious, complex journey. you obviously want to purge yourself of something that has been so destructive and has had such a grip on you. but in the deep recesses of your mind, you wonder if you will mourn...
I sit on the bed and kick off my shoes, and he kneels before me and takes the riding boots, holding one open for my bare foot. I hesitate; it is such an intimate gesture between a young woman and a man. His smiling upward glance tells me that he unde...
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, w...
For most of their relationship, Eric avoided paying his due because he knew Alice would pay when he didn't. If he paid only 10 units, she would come up with the other 30. If he didn't feel like driving over to her house then she would come to his. if...
Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter to the New Statesman, saved on fuel and ate their carrots raw? Yes, it would, but the point is that no...
As I rock down the hall I am flung from my path- snatched and grabbed. Before I can even utter a word, a large palm is covering my mouth. In less than five seconds I am inside a pitch black room, pushed face first into a cold metal door, and I hear t...
We're a couple of travelers!" I called up to her. "I'm Briony, and this is Ella!" "Grammy said I ought not to talk to strangers!" she called back. "We're not strangers!" Ella shouted. "We're with the union!" I cut her a look and mouthed, , which was ...
I walked around him, champagne in hand. Great feeling. -Give me a flash, he said – just a little quick… I flashed opened the coat as I strolled by. He exhaled with a sigh- O, he said, Please Again. This time I stood squarely in front of him. He w...
