But he place a gentle palm under her chin and turned her face back to him. “I'm privileged to see you like this,” he said, his eyes fierce. “Wear you social mask at your balls and parties and when you visit your friends out there, but when we a...
Your level of audacity affects how well they perceive your idea. Audacity in asking means that you ask for what you actually want. When you are in the heat of the conversation, and things are getting real, and the yes and no affects your bank acco...
It is as if there were in the human consciousness a sense of reality, a feeling of objective presence, a perception of what we may call ‘something there,’ more deep and more general than any of the special and particular ‘senses’ by which the...
Rebecca was an academic star. Her new book was on the phenomenon of word casings, a term she'd invented for words that no longer had meaning outside quotation marks. English was full of these empty words--"friend" and "real" and "story" and "change"-...
She was so overwhelmingly beautiful and impressive, he found it too much to handle. He could barely believe any of his new memroies, but the idea that Isabelle Lightwood had been his girlfriend seemed more unbelievable than the fact that vampires wer...
This is the other secret that real artists know and wannabe writers don’t. When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication. She approves. We have earned favor in her sight. When we sit ...
Not only did I rediscover every experience of my life, I had to live each unfulfilled desire as well—as though they’d been fulfilled. I saw that what transpires in the mind is just as real as any flesh and blood occurrence. What had only been ima...
Opportunity to suspend disbelief is often why we watch movies. The stories and images touch us and shift perspectives in ways we may not allow in our daily lives. As readily as you check your “this isn’t real” attitude at the ticket counter –...
Being others-focused instead of self-focused changes your worldview. Living in a selfless manner and seeking to help others enriches our very existence on a daily basis. Get your hands dirty once in a while by serving in a capacity that is lower than...
There is nothing passive about mindfulness. One might even say that it expresses a specific kind of passion—a passion for discerning what is subjectively real in every moment. It is a mode of cognition that is, above all, undistracted, accepting, a...
Part of the problem with the word 'disabilities' is that it immediately suggests an inability to see or hear or walk or do other things that many of us take for granted. But what of people who can't feel? Or talk about their feelings? Or manage their...
Shane was just leaving, too.” “What?” he cried. I slammed my palms flat against his body. My hands slid up to his pecks and pushed. “Yeah. You have to go now.” “Are you for real?” he asked. He was slowly backing his way through the room...
Life is full of all sorts of setbacks and twists and turns and disappointments. The character of this team will be how well you will come back from this letdown, this defeat. You could still be a great team and you can still accomplish great things a...
I write because I am alone and move through the world alone. No one will know what has passed through me... I write because there are stories that people have forgotten to tell, because I am a woman trying to stand up in my life... I write out of hur...
You say people's struggles are a game! That's totally wrong! Facing yourself no matter how tough things get... and keeping up the fight... that's what games are really about! You bet your chip of life as if it meant nothing! You lost to yourself! Whe...
A real love letter is made of insight, understanding, and compassion. Otherwise it's not a love letter. A true love letter can produce a transformation in the other person, and therefore in the world. But before it produces a transformation in the ot...
Some readers cannot enjoy the shepherds because they know (or they say they know) that real country people are not more happy or more virtuous than any one else; but it would be tedious here to explain to them the many causes (reasons too) that have ...
The central feature of the practice of meditation and hard work known as Zen is that, as Matthiessen says, it “has no patience with mysticism, far less the occult.” Nor does it have any time with moralism, the prescriptions or distortions we woul...
I explained my opinion of the ship’s logic. “That is a strange designation,” said the ship. “While I have certain organic elements incorporated into my substructure and decentralized DNA computing components, I am not—in the strictest sense...
While performing the great majority of the actions in their life, people are totally unaware. We tend to go through our daily activities mechanically. We talk without real purpose. We do things without even knowing that we do them. We are not really ...
It's not unreal to me yet, though it might get that way soon. It still feels very real. And not even horrible -- the dead are just the dead. I am convinced that the living people they once were would have been proud of their protective bodies hoodwin...
