I became interested in librarians while researching my first book, about obituaries. With the exception of a few showy eccentrics, like the former soldier in Hitler's army who had a sex change and took up professional whistling, the most engaging obi...
Many are the scholars who make it their professional occupation to occupy themselves in this towering edifice of culture, exploring its nook and crannies, developing their responses, making their contributions here and there, and helping to hand it o...
It's intriguing to observe so many of the outrageous prophecies, made with such biting satire years ago in the first edition, come into being through the craft of so many self-entitled egomaniacs running a global 'corpornation' for personal interest ...
I’ve heard that lawyers’ children, on seeing their parents in court in the heat of argument, get the wrong idea: they think opposing counsel to be the personal enemies of their parents, they suffer agonies, and are surprised to see them often go ...
[In a TV commercial] Dr Ray Stantz: Are you troubled by strange noises in the middle of the night? Dr. Egon Spengler: Do you experience feelings of dread in your basement or attic? Dr. Peter Venkman: Have you or your family ever seen a spook, spectre...
Ray Vargo: Did you try to follow the bird? Put a bug on it? Anything like that? Louie: No, I never had a reason to do anything like that. Like I said I realize that the arrangement I made with this guy is pretty weird, but he's always shown me comple...
Stansfield: [catching Mathilda in the bathroom with food bags] Special delivery huh... Let me guess... Chinese? Thai, maybe? Ahh, I've got it. Italian food [pops a pill and pulls out a gun] Stansfield: What's your name angel... [Mathilda answers] Sta...
Connor: Okay, Roc... [Connor looks at him and laughs; his mask is badly put on] Rocco: What? You guys got masks. Murphy: You look like Mush Mouth from Fat Albert. [as they keep giggling, Rocco takes his mask off] Rocco: Fine! Fuck it. When we're done...
Are Child Molesters Really Just Victims Themselves? "All victims are offenders," one professional challenged me at a conference, "and all offenders are victims. How does your work address that?" My work doesn't address that because I don't believe th...
The world of literature has everything in it, and it refuses to leave anything out. I have read like a man on fire my whole life because the genius of English teachers touched me with the dazzling beauty of language. Because of them I rode with Don Q...
Chuckie: Wait, Bill. Hold it. Did you hear that? [Man moans upstairs] Chuckie: Morgan! If you're watching pornos in my mom's room again, I'm gonna give you a fucking beating! [Morgan runs downstairs] Morgan: What's up fellas? Billy: Morgan, why don't...
Billy Beane: It's hard not to be romantic about baseball. This kind of thing, it's fun for the fans. It sells tickets and hot dogs. Doesn't mean anything. Peter Brand: Billy, we just won twenty games in a row. Billy Beane: And what's the point? Peter...
Smalls: I was gonna put the ball back. Squints: But it was signed by Babe Ruth! Smalls: Yeah, you keep telling me that! Who is she? Ham Porter: WHAT? WHAT? Kenny: The sultan of swat! Bertram: The king of crash! Timmy: The colossus of clout! Tommy: Th...
Getting a handle on why wolves do what they do has never been an easy proposition. Not only are there tremendous differences in both individual and pack personalities, but each displays a surprising range of behaviors depending on what's going on aro...
She can’t explain or quite understand what it is that is special about dancing with Harry. When he opens his arms to her, he is so sure, the way he holds her, not too hard, not too soft. Like coming home. Where she belongs. The way he moves her. Th...
Doctors tend to enter the arenas of their profession's practice with a brisk good cheer that they have to then stop and try to mute a bit when the arena they're entering is a hospital's fifth floor, a psych ward, where brisk good cheer would amount t...
The Happiest Man in The World The French interpreter for the 14th Dalai Lama, former academic and dedicated meditator Matthieu Ricard, came into the spotlight in the field of neural science after being named “the happiest man in the world”. Natur...
It's one of the great temptations, you see--wanting to prove the strength of your own faith by making others believe what you believe. It shows you're right. But it doesn't prove anything of the sort. All it proves is that you're condescending and ar...
We all have an unscientific weakness for being always in the right, and this weakness seems to be particularly common among professional and amateur politicians. But the only way to apply something like scientific method in politics is to proceed on ...
Although the terminology implies scientific endorsement, false memory syndrome is not currently an accepted diagnostic label by the APA and is not included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; American Psychiatric As...
[Colin confronts Billy on the rooftop] Billy Costigan: FREEZE! [points gun at Colin] Colin Sullivan: Hey! Hey! Hey! Billy Costigan: Put your fucking hands up! Colin Sullivan: Put the fucking gun down! Put the gun... put the gun down, alright? I came ...
