Quantin crept closer to the knoll. A pungent smell passed through his nostrils up into his brain. Attracted by the poppies' scarlet smears, he was about to take another step when he felt a hand on his elbow. A man in a poppy-red jacket, his pupils di...
He kissed you! He f@*#king kissed you right in front of me," Wharick growled through his clenched teeth. Kathel looked up from the ground where he was now leaning up on his elbows, far too pleased with his performance and having a look of mischief on...
Destiny is not one push, she thought as she waited to cross a quiet street on that cold Paris evening years later, but a thousand small moments that through insight and hard work you line up in the right direction, like the magnet does the metal shav...
You'd think God would come right out and tell us what to do in the Bible, but He doesn't. He mostly tells stories, and He rarely stops the story to say what the point is. He just lets the characters and conflict hang in the air like smoke.
Recently, a lot of Americans have swapped the awkward phrase 'same-sex marriage' for the term 'marriage equality'. This phrase is ordinarily implied to mean that same-sex couples will have the rights different-sexed couples do. But it could also mean...
The Prince stood beside the timpanist to count his rests for him and see that he came in in the right place. I suppressed all the trumpet passages which were clearly beyond the players' grasp. The solitary trombone was left to his own devices; but as...
Your life is your practice. Your spiritual practice does not occur someplace other than in your life right now, and your life is nowhere other than where you are. You are looking for answers, insight, and wisdom that you already possess. Live the lif...
We're dealing here," said Vimes, "With a twisted mind." "Oh, no! You think so?" "Yes." "But... no... you can't be right. Because Nobby was with us all the time." "Not Nobby," said Vimes testily. "Whatever he might do to a dragon, I doubt if he'd make...
Some years ago I was struck by the large number of falsehoods that I had accepted as true in my childhood, and by the highly doubtful nature of the whole edifice that I had subsequently based on them. I realized that it was necessary, once in the cou...
Inevitably, people tell me that poor folks are lazy or unintelligent, that they are somehow deserving of their poverty. However, if you begin to look at the sociological literature on poverty, a more complex picture emerges. Poverty and unemployment ...
You’re like a god from a Greek myth, Saiman. You have no empathy. You have no concept of the world beyond your ego. Wanting something gives you an automatic right to obtain it by whatever means necessary with no regard to the damage it may do. I wo...
Tell the Queen that there's been a robin red-breast hanging about Kotir grounds. It flies down low and vanishes near the floor. Cludd thinks it might be something to do with those woodlanders. Now, I'm to say nothing to Fortunata or Ashleg... 'I must...
They tried not to stare, but they couldn't keep their eyes away. I was a freak now. I made people uncomfortable and not necessarily because of my scars-but because what my scars represented. Danger, fear, and the unknown. Something had had happened t...
My sister is there with, probably, the most dangerous people on this city! You have a little sister?” “No.” “Then you don’t have any right to tell me what I suposse to sacrifice if it’s for my sister’s sake!” “Owen...” “She’s ...
Wherever you go..., you'll see Heaven and Hell on every side... in . Look for them and you'll soon know them. There on your left, Hell shuffles by, carrying a reluctant, gloomy chicken, his only comrade. There on your right, Heaven spring past, singi...
Our best moral stories don’t tell us what is right or wrong in every situation, but they show us what one character did in one situation at one time. Readers, viewers, and listeners are supposed to extrapolate the moral meaning from the story. We�...
We want splendid books, books that immerse us in the splendor of reality and keep us there; books that prove to us that love is at work in the world next to evil, right up against it, at times indistinctly, and that it always will be, just the way th...
It has often been hard for me to know if people are serious when they talk about making T-shirts. Just to be clear: Nobody ever means it, ever. Making and wearing matching, themed T-shirts is embarrassing. Unless you want to make some with me right n...
I think it would be best if you came down from there before I explained that." "I think I'll stay right where I am, thank you," I said. "And you, you stay where you are, or I'll...I don't know what I'll do, but it will really hurt. You, I mean.
I have learned that if you fake your life it will kill you slowly, terribly and cause the most pain for everyone. You try to do the right thing, not hurt anyone, conform to what love is supposed to be and what it is supposed to look like, but in the ...
The Reverend William Trent, whose mind was of a serious order, had several times warned his elder sister that too lively a sense of humour frequently led to laxity of principle. She now perceived how right he was; and wondered, in dismay, whether it ...
