I thought society would do the right thing. Now I look around and I think -- society never does the right thing. Sometimes people do the right thing. Sometimes one person makes a difference. But civilization has rules, and I've learned them well -- n...
After all, what is happiness? Love, they tell me. But love doesn't bring and never has brought happiness. On the contrary, it's a constant state of anxiety, a battlefield; it's sleepless nights, asking ourselves all the time if we're doing the right ...
All I've learned in today's Shakespeare class is: Sometimes you have to fall in love with the wrong person just so you can find the right person. A more useful lesson would've been: Sometimes the right person doesn't love you back. Or sometimes the r...
Everyone likes a bit of variety. I'm sure none of my readers only want to read about anti-heroes or villainous protagonists any more than they only want to read about square-jawed heroes doing the right thing. I just write characters than entertain m...
My childhood, I wouldn't say it was bad. It helped me grow up. I stayed out of trouble. My parents taught me what's wrong and right, and knowing that I had a little brother following me, I had to make sure I was doing the right thing so he knows what...
I grew up with a pretty tough mom. She was a self-appointed neighborhood watchdog, and if she saw that any of the local boys were up to no good, she would scold them on the spot. Although she is only 5 feet 2, she was famous in our neighborhood for i...
One of the greatest of human follies is that we think we know ourselves so well, that we know how we would act under any conditions, that we would under any circumstance 'do the right thing.' Well, as many have discovered, you don't really know what ...
While I am a Republican, I'm a conservative first and I'm a constitutional conservative, and in Washington some of the Republicans are oftentimes just as much a problem as some of the Democrats, and we need to elect more senators like Senator Rubio a...
Ned: Do you have life insurance, Phil? Because if you do, you could always use a little more, right? I mean, who couldn't? But you wanna know something? I got the feeling... [whistles] Ned: ... you ain't got any. Am I right or am I right? Or am I rig...
The Big Lebowski: What makes a man, Mr. Lebowski? The Dude: Dude. The Big Lebowski: Huh? The Dude: Uhh... I don't know sir. The Big Lebowski: Is it being prepared to do the right thing, whatever the cost? Isn't that what makes a man? The Dude: Hmmm.....
Galatians 5:22-23 describes the fruit of the Spirit, which is "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." Notice the verse does not say the "fruits" of the Spirit, but fruit. The fruit, or result, of t...
Eating words and listening to them rumbling in the gut is how a writer learns the acid and alkali of language. It is a process at the same time physical and intellectual. The writer has to hear language until she develops perfect pitch, but she also ...
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"-...
English has so many words that do not exist in Sharchhop, but they are mostly nouns, mostly things: machine, airplane, wristwatch. Sharchhop, on the other hand, reveals a culture of material economy but abundant, intricate familial ties and social re...
King Arthur: Cut down a tree with a herring? It can't be done. [the Knights of Ni scream and cover their ears] Knight 1: Don't say that word! King Arthur: What word? Knight 1: I cannot tell! Suffice to say, is one of the words the Knights of Ni canno...
What is a valley of tears? He was scourged, covered with spittle, crowned with thorns, nailed to the cross. From this valley of tears you must ascend. But ascend where? ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...
A bad word whispered will echo a hundred miles.
A word once spoken, an army of chariots cannot overtake it.
Swiftest horse cannot overtake the word once spoken.
Actions speak louder than words.
Rather weigh the will of the speaker, than the worth of the words.
