Even though God could create all kinds of things, he could hardly create himself before he had a "self" to create with. So there was only one possibility left: God had always existed. But she had already rejected that possibility! Everything that exi...
to read is to surrender oneself to an endless displacement of curiosity and desire from one sentence to another, from one action to another, from one level of a text to another. The text unveils itself before us, but never allows itself to be possess...
I watched the people passing below, each of them a story, each story part of somebody else's, all of it connected to the big story of the world. People weren't islands, so far as I was concerned. How could they be, when their stories kept getting tan...
And although I have seen nothing but black crows in my life, it doesn't mean that there's no such thing as a white crow. Both for a philosopher and for a scientist it can be important not to reject the possibility of finding a white crow. You might a...
Only philosophers embark on this perilous expedition to the outermost reaches of language and existence. Some of them fall off, but others cling on desperately and yell at the people nestling deep in the snug softness, stuffing themselves with delici...
The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honour or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.
There is no other company in the world I've found more pleasurable than my own. For no one else has ever been as accepting of me or as thoroughly entertained by my quirkiness. It is a sweet thing to like yourself.
Evil exists in this world because it has its place. For had you never sat blindly through the darkness of night, your eyes wouldn't turn toward the sunrise to appreciate its warmth and illumination.
Moisture falls from the sky, cleansing the world and sustaining precious life. But it's the gloom—the cold, dark air—that receives notice. We fail to see the miracle of raindrops through our own tears.
There are many roads in this world that will guide you to pleasurable, fun, and exciting destinations that do not end in any form of lasting happiness. So before you step on an enticing path, figure out where it leads.
Sad people have the gift of time, while the world dizzies everyone else; they remain stagnant, their bodies refusing to follow pace with the universe. With these kind of people everything aches for too long, everything moves without rush, wounds are ...
The world is a cancer eating itself away... I am think that when the great silence descends upon all and everywhere music will at last triumph. When into the womb of time everything is again withdrawn chaos will be restored and chaos is the score upo...
the story is not a pretty one. there is violence in it. And cruelty. But stories that are not pretty have a certain value, too, I suppose. Everything, as you well know (having lived in this world long enough to have figured out a thing or two for you...
These are tears and I am crying. It is not a painful sensation, as I always thought it must be. It feels like the purest expression of feeling that it is possible to have. And the feeling mixes everything up together. Happiness. Sadness. Relief. Sorr...
Ben hid a wince behind his hand, trying very hard not to think of seventy-year-old Ellie Verstgard rolling around with Mr. Wenner. Despite his best resistance, the image scrolled across his brain and took some of his love for the world with it.
I knew the world too well to believe this sudden smiling. (…) The gods never send us this invitation to delight so readily or so strongly as when they are preparing some new agony. We are their bubbles; they blow us big before they prick us.
He would lay here holding her as long as it took and he didn't really care how long that might be. She was his world now, his priority, the rest of his life could wait as far as he was concerned. As long as he knew she was safe, it would all be okay.
Here was a boy who liked flaws, who saw them not as failings but as strengths. Who knew such a person could exist, or what would have happened if we'd found each other under different circumstances? Maybe in a perfect world. But not in this one.
When Janie looked out of her door she saw the drifting mists gathered in the west -- that cloud field of the sky -- to arm themselves with thunders and march forth against the world. Louder and higher and lower and wider the sound and motion spread, ...
Tess is not simply presented as a passive victim, however. Throughout the novel she is shown as experiencing tension between the intractable materiality of the social and economic world in which she has to live, and her extraordinarily vulnerable, se...
I blew a strand of black hair from my face. “A demon treating another with kindness is something I have yet to see.” “Careful,” the demon whispered. “You may have already seen the rough shape and form it takes in this world, and yet you do ...
