Then he asked my age and I asked his. That's the tradition in China. If we know each other's ages we can understand each other's past. We Chinese have been collective for so long, personal histories are not worth mentioning. Therefore as soon as Xiao...
Anybody with leisure can do that who is willing to begin where everything ought to be begun--that is, at the beginning. Nothing worth calling good can or ever will be started full grown. The essential of any good is life, and the very body of created...
Another mistaken notion connected with the law of large numbers is the idea that an event is more or less likely to occur because it has or has not happened recently. The idea that the odds of an event with a fixed probability increase or decrease de...
B-but, Mr Jimson, I w-want to be an artist.' 'Of course you do,' I said, 'everybody does once. But they get over it, thank God, like the measles and the chickenpox. Go home and go to bed and take some hot lemonade and put on three blankets and sweat ...
Pride had a very similar character with Lust. He was difficult to satisfy, but rather than desiring tasty foods, Pride desired valuable possessions. Man clung to Pride more than the other two because he was the firstborn son. Pride had a very sensiti...
Look at the kind of people who most object to the childishness and cheapness of celebrity culture. Does one really want to side with such apoplectic and bombastic bores? I should know, I often catch myself being one, and it isn’t pretty. I will def...
Or, you say that this business of marking books is going to slow up your reading. It probably will. That's one of the reasons for doing it. Most of us have been taken in by the notion that speed of reading is a measure of our intelligence. There is n...
I was astonished to see Adrian watching me, a look of contentment on his face. His eyes seemed to study my every feature. Seeing me notice him, he immediately looked away. His usual smirky expression replaced by a dreamy one. “The mechanic will wai...
People from my first home say I'm brave. They tell me I'm strong. They pat me on the back and say, 'Way to go. Good job.' But the truth is, I am not really very brave; I am not really very strong; and I am not doing anything spectacular. I am simply ...
The way to control circumstances is to control the forces within yourself to make a greater man of yourself, and as you become greater and more competent, you will naturally gravitate into better circumstances. In this connection, we should remember ...
Listen," Francois said. "Yonder is Paris --laughing, tragic Paris, who once had need of a singer to proclaim her splendor and all her misery. Fate made the man; in necessity's mortar she pounded his soul into the shape Fate needed. To king's courts s...
Why do many believers insist on repeatedly pointing to the crimes of 20th century dictators who led officially atheistic societies as some sort of evidence of their god's existence? It makes no sense. If the rivers of blood on Stalin's hands and Mao'...
To be American is to be part of a dialogical and democratic operation that grapples with the challenge of being human in an open-ended and experimental manner. Although America is a romantic project in which a paradise, a land of dreams, is fanned an...
All the external adoration, respect and adulation in the word, can't drown out the internal voices that tell us, we are not good enough and unworthy of; happiness, love and an abundant life. When we need others to tell us were amazing, worthy and lov...
Benjamin Button: [Voice over; letter to his daughter] For what it's worth: it's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules ...
Doug Billings: All good with Melissa? Stu Price: Oh, yeah. Told her we're two hours outside of wine country, and she bought it. Phil Wenneck: Don't you think it's strange that you've been in a relationship for three years and you still have to lie ab...
Merlin: Congratulations on completing your first task. Charlie, Roxy, well done. For those of you who are still confused, if you can get a breathing tube through the U-bend of a toilet, you have an unlimited air supply. Simple physics... worth rememb...
Harvey Milk: [Voice Over, Last lines] I ask this... If there should be an assassination, I would hope that five, ten, one hundred, a thousand would rise. I would like to see every gay lawyer, every gay architect come out - - If a bullet should enter ...
[first lines] Student: If, and only if, both sides of the numerator is divisible by the inverse of he square root of the two unassigned variable. School Professor: Good. Except when the value of the "X" coordinate is equal to or less than the value o...
[Ponda Baba gives Luke a rough shove and starts yelling at Luke in an alien language which Luke doesn't understand] Dr. Evazan: [explaining] He doesn't like you. Luke Skywalker: Sorry. Dr. Evazan: [grabbing Luke] *I* don't like you either. You just w...
Buzz Lightyear: Woody, stop this nonsense and let's go. Woody: Nah, Buzz. [sigh] Woody: I can't go. I can't abandon these guys. They need me to get into this museum. Without me, they'll go back into storage. Maybe forever. Buzz Lightyear: Woody, you'...
