In a few more days I'd anticipated telling Veronika that our injections had cured her heart condition. But in light of her unscheduled departure form Villette my telling that particular lie will not be required. The majority of people who attempt sui...
The sooner we associate long hours and multitasking with incompetence and carelessness the better. The next time you hear boasts of executives pulling an all-nighter or holding conference calls in their cars, be sure to offer your condolences; it's g...
There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. W...
If we are to believe he is really alive with all that that implies, then we have to believe without proof. And of course that is the only way it could be. If it could be somehow proved, then we would have no choice but to believe. We would lose our f...
I'm of the opinion that many Christians are in deep denial about the reality of there being 'real' Evil in this world. Evil that cannot be reasoned with; is reprobate, incorrigible, determined, un-appeasable, violent, murderous, and unrelenting. I fi...
I sometimes wonder whether the act of surrender is not one of the greatest of all - the highest. It is one of the [most] difficult of all... You see it's so immensely complicated. It needs real humility and at the same time, an absolute belief in one...
So much in a relationship changes when a partner is seriously ill, helpless yet blameless, and indefatigably needy. I felt old. [p. 99] The animal part of him in pain accepted my caring. But the part of himself in that pain didn't believe I could eve...
It is my experience that bold decisions give the best promise of success. But one must differentiate between [strategic] and tactical boldness and a military gamble. A bold operation is one in which success is not a certainty but which in case of fai...
Magic?" What did magic have to do with breaking into someone's store and stealing their stuff? "Don't you get it?" Peter said. "You're free now. You don't have to live by their rules anymore." Peter pointed into the inky blackness of the basement. "T...
Zorg: A case with four stones in it! Not one or two or three but four! Four stones! What the hell am I supposed to do with an empty case? Mangalore Aknot: We are warriors, not merchants. Zorg: But you can still count. Look it's easy. Look at my finge...
Captain Paul Prescott: [about Alicia] I don't like this, I don't like her coming here. Walter Beardsley: She's had me worried for some time. A woman of that sort. Devlin: What sort is that, Mr. Beardsley? Walter Beardsley: Oh, I don't think any of us...
Lilia: [singing] Death cometh to me, to set me free, death cometh to me. Joshua: No, Lilia. Death will not come to you. Lilia: Joshua! Joshua, you risk your life in coming here. You are firstborn. Joshua: So are you. I bring lamb's blood to mark the ...
Why has pachinko swept Japan? It can hardly be the excitement of gambling, since the risks and rewards are so small. During the hours spent in front of a pachinko machine, there is an almost total lack of stimulation other than the occasional rush of...
The English major is, first of all, a reader. She's got a book pup-tented in front of her nose many hours a day; her Kindle glows softly late into the night. But there are readers and there are readers. There are people who read to anesthetize themse...
That word. I would have given anything to hear her say it over the summer, to have had the chance to say it back, but now, more than ever, I understand its true power. How it can make you ache as much as it can make you soar. How it shouldn't be said...
Did it ever occur to you that I loved you as much as a man can love a woman? Loved you for years before I finally got you? During the war I'd go away and try to forget you, but I couldn't and I always had to come back. After the war I risked arrest, ...
When distinction of any kind, even intellectual distinction, is somehow resented as a betrayal of the American spirit of equal opportunity for all, the result must be just this terror of individualistic impulses setting us apart, either above or belo...
Oh, crap. The last person she wanted to run into this morning when she had to be super-professional was Hot Pool Guy. Before she had a chance to hide behind a plant or something, his gaze connected with hers and held her hostage. He flashed a smile a...
She always used to suspect that the price for happiness, the price for enjoying the company of a person you loved, was the steadily increasing risk of losing them, and at times, when she considered the possibility that she might lose Isabel or Clancy...
We pass and leave you lying. No need for rhetoric, for funeral music, for melancholy bugle-calls. No need for tears now, no need for regret. We took our risk with you; you died and we live. We take your noble gift, salute for the last time those line...
Pitiful is the person who is afraid of taking risks. Perhaps this person will never be disappointed or disillusioned; perhaps she won’t suffer the way people do when they have a dream to follow. But when that person looks back – and at some point...
