The clown figure has had so many meanings in different times and cultures. The jolly, well-loved joker familiar to most people is actually but one aspect of this protean creature. Madmen, hunchbacks, amputees, and other abnormals were once considered...
This was the geography around which my reality revolved: it did not occur to me, ever, that people were good or that a man was capable of change or that the world could be a better place through one’s taking pleasure in a feeling or a look or a ges...
What do you mean, 'Angle of Repose?' she asked me when I dreamed we were talking about Grandmother's life, and I said it was the angle at which a man or woman finally lies down. I suppose it is; and yet ... I thought when I began, and still think, th...
To me, summer has always been about potential. This was especially true when I was in high school. Those 3 or so months between 1 school year and the next always meant change. People got taller or wider or smaller. They broke up or came together, los...
So when people asked me why I was moving away from the city of my dreams, I asked them why I wouldn't. It's not about greener pastures. It's never been about that. All it's ever been about is exploring and falling and pulling myself back together. Ev...
We will martyr ourselves, suffering under the weight of a non-reciprocal relationship until some part of us bursts in protest. Suddenly, we lose our mind, and allowing ourselves to heap all manner of nastiness, name calling, patronizing, death threat...
We preach grace, but we don’t always practice it. We talk about God’s mercy, but we don’t always want the people who need it most to know it or get in on it. We say we are in the redemption business, but the door to that redemption is often loc...
Ginny, listen...I can't be involved with you anymore. We've got to stop seeing each other. We can't be together." "It's for some stupid noble reason isn't it?" "It's been like...like something out of someone else's life these last few weeks with you....
And then Harry Potter had launched in to a speech that was inspiring, yet vague. A speech to the effect that Fred and George and Lee had tremendous potential if they could just learn to be weirder. To make people's live surreal, instead of just surpr...
A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed o...
Charlotte: "It’s too bad they don’t give out diplomas for what you learn at the mall, because I could graduate with honors in that subject. No really. Since I’ve worked there, I’ve become an expert on all things shopping-related. For example,...
In my biology class, we'd talked about the definition of life: to be classified as a living creature, a thing needs to eat, breathe, reproduce, and grow. Dogs do, rocks don't, trees do, plastic doesn't. Fire, by that definition, is vibrantly alive. I...
Like most people I am smarter than some, dumber than others, skinnier than most, and fatter than a few, but none was ever more confused than I was. I flew with confusion always parallel to me, and a whole internal chase at my rear. The one matter tha...
Dans chaque démocratie libérale s'est élaboré un imaginaire de citoyenneté au sein duquel la projection dans l'avenir est devenue plus significative que le poids du passé. Cet imaginaire s'est traduit par des normes juridiques, et a même pén�...
The evening I went for a walk. To walk for the sake of walking is something I seldom do.Inside my apartment I'd felt inexplicably anxious. I needed to talk to someone, to be reassured. Or perhaps I needed to confess my sin: I was once again having im...
As if I feared that the scope of what I could feel and imagine was being quietly limited by the world within a world, the internet. The things outside of the web were becoming further from me, and everything inside it seemed piercingly relevant. The ...
It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. N...
Yāwshu (Jesus) is the son of the Canaano-Phoenician Most High God Ēl-Alyon, being the Son of the Virgin Lady Maryām by the Divine Will of the Lord, who blessed this conception of a child that would be named Immanuel. He would live among us as “G...
The first time he had taken the massa to one of these "high-falutin' to-dos," as Bell called them, Kunta had been all but overwhelmed by conflicting emotions: awe, indignation, envy, contempt, fascination, revulsion—but most of all a deep lonelines...
Restaurant, bar, night club. . . Eat, drink, walk. . . YAWN. . . For some people, this is ALL they can think of when getting ready for a date. Isn’t a “shortlist” like this enough to make you and your girlfriend want to yawn? Why not fill your ...
I am old enough to be married twice. I am old enough to be bedded without tenderness or consideration. I am old enough to face death in the confinement room and be told that my own mother--my own mother--has commanded them to save the child and not m...
