Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do. Think of the Queen Mary — the whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder. And there's a tiny thing at the edge of the rudder called a trimtab. It's a miniature rudder. ...
The next prisoner looks twelve. He says he's sixteen. He knows it is shameful to fight for the FNLA, but they told him that if he went to the front they would send him to school afterward. He wants to finish school because he wants to paint. if he co...
Gay kids aren’t a “plot point” that you can play with. Gay kids are real, actual kids, teenagers, growing up into awesome adults, and they don’t have the books they need to reflect that. Growing up, my nose was constantly stuck in a book. Gro...
I realized that I don't want to try to change you in order to be with you. That's not fair to you. And I deserve to share my life with someone who's on the same path as me, and right now, that's not you. But I need you to know that you have been such...
Tomorrow she’d look up tattoo removal. They were doing big things with lasers now. When Cal was just a little more stable, she’d break up with him, gently, and then she’d begin her project of helping everybody she could help, and after that she...
We're all pieces of the same ever-changing puzzle; some connected for mere seconds, some connected for life, some connected through knowledge, some through belief, some connected through wisdom, some through Love, and some connected with no explanati...
I noticed some scratch marks and faded blood stains high up on a wall. “What happened there?” “An inmate must have tried to escape. I saw a guy use two suction devices like the ones used to carry glass sheets to help lever himself up. He reache...
Thankfully existing only in SMALL pockets within our discipline, is “intellectual” snobbery. It’s a hushed but ugly truth that people are made to feel not worthy to be among a certain set – didn’t attend the right school or don’t have the...
Maybe at the very bottom of it... I really don't like God. You know, it's silly to say I don't like God because I don't believe in God, but in the same sense that I don't like Iago, or the Reverend Slope or any of the other villains of literature, th...
When you feel overwhelmed, you’re trying too hard. That kind of energy does not help the other person and it does not help you. You should not be too eager to help right away. There are two things: to be and to do. Don’t think too much about to d...
Bodily vigor is good, and vigor of intellect is even better, but far above both is character. It is true, of course, that a genius may, on certain lines, do more than a brave and manly fellow who is not a genius; and so, in sports, vast physical stre...
Why did you bother coming here at all?" "For my work. That's my profession. Writing about important things that are happening in the world." "I'm curious to know what exactly you wrote about Gulu. What important thing has been happening here in our t...
Try to forgive by trying to understand how it would feel to be in the other’s shoes. If someone hurts you – ask them - “What hurts you so much that you would do this?” Listen to the answer and try to understand what is valid for them. They ma...
We are absolutely right to condemn the suicide bomber's targeting of innocent civilians and mourn his victims. But as we have seen, in war the state also targets such victims; during the 20th century, the rate of civilian deaths rose sharply and now ...
Now let me ask my countrymen, Have you ever granted a moment's thought to this very vital problem in the building of our nation ? Have you devised any practical remedies to combat this evil ? Will you, my countrymen, go on without making any intellig...
There is history the way Tolstoy imagined it, as a great, slow-moving weather system in which even tsars and generals are just leaves before the storm. And there is history the way Hollywood imagines it, as a single story line in which the right move...
She didn't do anything at all except arrived without warning in the middle of the night (right when I least expected it) She walked by me, with a strut in her step smelling like summer causing me to turn my head (even the leaves swayed her way) All s...
Two distinctive traits especially identify beyond a doubt a strong and dominant character. One trait is contempt for external circumstances, when one is convinced that men ought to respect, to desire, and to pursue only what is moral and right, that ...
Let’s appreciate and welcome the arrival of a new prophet The one who can be Reasonable and rational Realistic and democrat The one who respects the rights of women and children And does not make everyone slave of his nation Let’s do not whip som...
Does it stand, but not straight enough? Is there a bend in the tool? Leaning left like the Marxist-Leninist Party? To the right, like the Jan Sangh fascists? Or wobbling mindlessly in the middle, like the Congress Party? Fear not, for it can be strai...
Let me speak plainly: The United States of America is and must remain a nation of openness to people of all beliefs. Our very unity has been strengthened by this pluralism. That's how we began; this is how we must always be. The ideals of our country...
