Edison was by far the most successful and, probably, the last exponent of the purely empirical method of investigation. Everything he achieved was the result of persistent trials and experiments often performed at random but always attesting extraord...
Barefoot conducts his seminars on his houseboat in Sausalito. It costs a hundred dollars to find out why we are on this Earth. You also get a sandwich, but I wasn't hungry that day. John Lennon had just been killed and I think I know why we are on th...
#1. Spend more time considering evidences of grace in other Christians than you do pondering their sins and weaknesses. You, as a Christian, probably have a much greater ability to see weakness in other believers than to see strength. It is as if you...
I have my own way to walk and for some reason or other Zen is right in the middle of it wherever I go. So there it is, with all its beautiful purposelessness, and it has become very familiar to me though I do not know "what it is." Or even if it is a...
You've honey on your tongue, ma fifille," Maman once said. "If you'd lived in earlier times, you could have been a troubadour." "...There aren't any troubadours any more, are there, Maman?" Marie said. "And if there were, girls wouldn't be allowed to...
Observation: Thanks to technological advances, avid readers seem to be replacing DTBAD (Dead Tree Book Acquisition Disorder) with an alphabet soup of more more modern-day hoarding behaviors: EBAD (E-Book Acquistion Disorder), EGAD (Electronic Gadget ...
The usual fiction – that the war would involve precision targeting and the careful avoidance of civilian deaths – was stated by Tony Blair at the beginning of the war. After similar bombing campaigns against Yugoslavia and Iraq, Blair was by now ...
If you look up 'atheism' in the dictionary, you will probably find it defined as the belief that there is no God. Certainly many people understand atheism in this way. Yet many atheists do not, and this is not what the term means if one considers it ...
Even now I ask myself, what would have happened if I had gone to the cove with Tansy that Thursday afternoon, instead of going to the beach? If I had stayed away from the boat at the jetty, hidden from sight? If I had thrown the pearl back in the sea...
I think about going to the lake, but I'm so weak that I barely make it to my meeting place with Gale. I sit on the rock where Cressida filmed us, but it's too wide without his body beside me. Several times I close my eyes and count to ten, thinking t...
Mmm.” Sebastian moaned. “It’s so delicious.” He laughed then. “It’s not the Poisonous Desert; it’s the Oreo Desert.” He scooped up handfuls of dirt and stones and funneled it into his mouth. He licked his palms, his teeth grinding aga...
As I was escorted outside by the officers, my friends looked back at me with blank expressions. I don’t think they knew what to say to me. I had lied to them about my home life. They had always been there for me and probably would have understood i...
Do you like flora and fauna? How about plants and animals? Because we have more of that beautiful crap than we know what to do with. Charmingly domesticated troops of monkeys swing freely throughout our orchid-laden property. You’re probably thinki...
You’re going to work in this life, and you’re going to play. And when the last days come, you’ll look back and find that that’s all there was, an endless stream of days going back to today. But if you can find the thing you should be doing, t...
When anyone tells me that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself whether it be more probable that this person should either deceive or be deceived or that the fact which he relates should really have happened. I weigh ...
[Discussing a new prisoner who has to spend the night in the box] Dragline: He ain't in the box because of the joke played on him. He back-sassed a free man. They got their rules. We ain't got nothin' to do with that. Would probably have happened to ...
Max: You're full of shit. Vincent: I'm full of shit? You're a monument of it. You even bullshitted yourself, all I am is taking out the garbage, killing bad people. Max: Yeah, well that's what you said. Vincent: You believed me? Max: Then what'd they...
Clark: [the Christmas dinner table shudders, and loud gagging noises come from underneath. Clark looks to see where its coming from] Edward, what's wrong with the dog? Eddie: [Looks underneath the table] Oh, he's just yakkin' on a bone. [Grotesque ba...
Roger: [over the radio while driving trucks] Hey, too tall, too slow, two, come back! Peter: You look my size when you're sitting in a truck. Roger: What I want to know is how we got to be in the same force with you being so large and all? Peter: Wel...
Barton Keyes: Now look, Walter. A guy takes out an accident policy that's worth $100,000 if he's killed on the train. Then, two weeks later, he *is* killed on the train. And, not from the train accident, mind you, but falling off some silly observati...
Alfred Pennyworth: Know your limits, Master Wayne. Bruce Wayne: Batman has no limits. Alfred Pennyworth: Well, you do, sir. Bruce Wayne: Well, can't afford to know 'em. Alfred Pennyworth: And what happens on the day that you find out? Bruce Wayne: We...