I have argued elsewhere (Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence [2005]) that we need to treat ethics in biblical texts just as we treat ethics in any other works of ancient literature. It is a vacuous exercise to pick and choose which atro...
Life is what we make it to be; can be other people’s life or it can be our special one. The difference is that the first we sit and watch and basically we know the ending but the second is defined by us and require lots of work and effort to define...
Jesus is not saying, “Make sure you pray a prayer of repentance, start going to church, and wait for Me to come back.” He is saying, “You can live a radically different life because there’s a new world order that just broke in, so stop walkin...
I thought of Bobby, of the last look he had given me, and at that moment I understood one of the differences between man and cat: man knows he's going to die, so he can get ready and be willing, even eager, to go. A cat knows the end is near, but tha...
At paces that might stun and dismay the religious jogger, the runners easily kept up all manner of chatter and horseplay. When they occasionally blew by a huffing fatty or an aging road runner, they automatically toned down the banter to avoid overwh...
It's my conceit that perhaps some diseases perceived as diseases that destroy a well-functioning machine actually turn it into a new but still well-functioning machine with a different purpose. The AIDS virus: look at it from its point of view. Very ...
[On what young husbands should say to their wives:] I have taken you in my arms, and I love you, and I prefer you to my life itself. For the present life is nothing, and my most ardent dream is to spend it with you in such a way that we may be assure...
Constantly seeking approval means you’re perpetually worried that others are forming negative judgments of you. This steals the fun, ingenuity, and spontaneity from your life. Flip the switch on this habit. If you’re lucky enough to have somethin...
Be the kind of person that others admire, can count on, trust and enjoy spending time with. After you have developed that reputation, people will start to ask you what you do, and will want to work with you on the things that matter. When you focus o...
They don't deal with any basic difference in human nature between black and white..., they only study the effects of environment on human nature. You place the white man in the ghetto, deprive him of educational advantages, arrange it so he has to st...
They were frisky, eager and exuberant, and they had all been friends in the States. They were plainly unthinkable. They were noisy, overconfident, empty-headed kids of twenty-one. They had gone to college and were engaged to pretty, clean girls whose...
[first lines] Zachry: [shivering beside the fire] Oh, lonesome night. And babbits bawling, the wind biting the bone. Wind like this... full of voices. Ancestry howling at you, yibbering stories, all voices tied up into one. One voice differing. One v...
The Joker: I want... my phone call. I want it. I want it! I want my phone call! Detective Stephens: That's nice. The Joker: How many of your friends have I killed? Detective Stephens: I'm a twenty-year man. I can tell the difference between punks who...
[the team have just been asked to admit to any Communist connections, no matter how vague or distant, before they do the main broadcast against McCarthy - because he will us it as ammunition against them] Edward R. Murrow: Oh, if none of us had ever ...
Psychiatrist: That's very interesting, Harold, and I think, very illuminating. There seems to be a definite pattern emerging. And, of course, this pattern, once isolated, can be coped with. Recognize the problem, and you are halfway on the road to it...
Lucy: Daddy, did God made for you to be like this or was it an accident? Sam: Ok, what do you mean? Lucy: I mean you're different. Sam: But what do you mean? Lucy: You're not like other daddies. Sam: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry. Lucy: It's ...
Ellen Brody: [to Chief Brody] You told me the shark was caught. And I, I heard it on the news... I heard it on the Cape station. Hooper: They caught A shark, not THE shark. Big difference. Not the shark that killed Chrissie Watkins... and probably no...
Max: What the hell do you think about when you're playing? Where does your mind go when you hit the keys? 1900: Last night I was in a beautiful country. Women had perfume in their hair, everything glowed. It was full of tides. Max: He traveled. And e...
'Mrs.' Margaret Todhunter: [having been given the choice between a double or two single rooms, Eric Todhunter has hastily chosen the two singles] You might at least have asked which one I preferred. Eric Todhunter: Please Margaret, a double room in a...
[In 1968, Noodles meets a familiar figure in heavy make-up... ] Noodles: Hello, Deborah. [For a long time, Deborah is silent and still] Noodles: Aren't you gonna say anything? Deborah Gelly: What is someone supposed to say after... after more than th...
[telling Capt. Terrell why they need to go in a different direction than Wales' true course] Fletcher: Look at those boys over there: tied-down guns. Bounty hunters. Come out of a war, got no other way to make a livin'. Every last mother's son of the...
