Si uno quiere descubrir cualidades realmente excepcionales en el carácter de un ser humano, debe tener el tiempo o la oportunidad de observar su comportamiento durante varios años. Si este comportamiento no es egoísta, si está presidido por una g...
So there you have it: Nature is a rotten mess. But that's only the beginning. If you take your eyes off it for one second, it will kill you. Thorns, insects, fungus, worms, birds, reptiles, wild animals, raging rivers, bottomless ravines, dry deserts...
That's how it is with want. As long as you lack something you yearn for it without cease. if only I could have that one thing, you tell yourself, all my problems would be solved. But once you get it, once the object of your desires is thrust into you...
When I left her office, I felt like she'd gut-punched me, brushed me off, slapped me back and forth, gave me a cool compress to put on my cheeks, cold-cocked me with a stiff uppercut to the jaw, picked me up, brushed me off again, then kicked me in t...
It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm amo...
He could totally be your boyfriend," [Angel] went on with annoying persistance. "You guys could get married. I could be like a junior bridesmaid. Total could be your flower dog." "I'm only a kid!" I shrieked. "I can't get married!" "You could in New ...
Q: You'er presented with a smooth-faced, eight-foot-high wooden wall. Your objective? Get over it. To, like, save comrades or something. How to accomplish this? A: Take a running start, brace one foot against the wall, throw one hand to the top, try ...
The over-weight and out of shape guy who owned the house had apparently decided that having a half-million dollar house meant that he couldn’t afford to hire someone to clean out his gutters. Now he was dead with what looked to me like a broken nec...
And yet we have what purports, or professes, or is claimed, to be a contract—the Constitution—made eighty years ago, by men who are now all dead, and who never had any power to bind us, but which (it is claimed) has nevertheless bound three gener...
Have you ever found your heart's desire and then lost it? I had seen myself, a portrait of myself as a reader. My childhood: days home sick from school reading Nancy Drew, forbidden books read secretively late at night. Teenage years reading -trying ...
I would have written you, myself, if I could put down in words everything I want to say to you. A sea of ink would not be enough.” “But you built me dreams instead,” Celia says, looking up at him. “And I built you tents you hardly ever see. I...
He reads histories and mythologies and fairy tales, wondering why it seems that only girls are ever swept away from their mundane lives on farms by knights or princes or wolves. It strikes him as unfair to not have the same fanciful opportunity himse...
I do not mourn the loss of my sister because she will always be with me, in my heart," she says. "I am, however, rather annoyed that my Tara has left me to suffer you lot alone. I do not see as well without her. I do not hear as well without her. I d...
We reviewed the ways we had to bring customers: Method A, flying aerobatics at the edge of town. Method B, the parachute jump. Then we began experimenting with Method C. There is a principle that says if you lay out a lonely solitaire game in the cen...
The people are a story that never ends, A river that winds and falls and gleams erect in many dawns; Lost in deep gulleys, it turns to dust, rushes in the spring freshet, Emerges to the sea. The people are a story that is a long incessant Coming aliv...
Celia, wait,” Marco says, standing but not moving closer to her. “You are breaking my heart. You told me once that I reminded you of your father. That you never wanted to suffer the way your mother did for him, but you are doing exactly that to m...
Do you really expect me to fall apart every time another woman throws herself at you? Because, if that's so, I'll be a nervous wreck before the honeymoon's over. Although, if they do it in front of me..." He went still. "Did you just propose to me?" ...
Listen to the people who love you. Believe that they are worth living for even when you don't believe it. Seek out the memories depression takes away and project them into the future. Be brave; be strong; take your pills. Exercise because it's good f...
For, what is order without common sense, but Bedlam’s front parlor? What is imagination without common sense, but the aspiration to out-dandy Beau Brummell with nothing but a bit of faded muslin and a limp cravat? What is Creation without common se...
Human vanity is so constituted that it stiffens before difficulties. The more an object conceals itself from our eyes, the greater the effort we make to seize it, because it pricks our pride, it excites our curiosity and it appears interesting. In fi...
Since her retirement from teaching Miss Beryl's health had in many respects greatly improved, despite her advancing years. An eighth-grade classroom was an excellent place to snag whatever was in the air in the way of illness. Also depression, which,...