Eight-and-twenty years,' said I, 'I have lived, and never a ghost have I seen as yet.' The old woman sat staring hard into the fire, her pale eyes wide open. 'Ay,' she broke in; 'and eight-and-twenty years you have lived and never seen the likes of t...
Don't you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don't you believe in telepathy? — in ancient astronauts? — in the Bermuda triangle? — in life after death? No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no. One person recently, goaded into desperation...
Why do you think, A.J.," they say in unison, "that you find these boys so attractive?" I didn't say that this fiery chemical explosion leaps from somewhere inside me. Parents don't want to hear these things. I shrugged and said nothing. "Maybe you sh...
He's a funny one," said Ida. "Here's how he sound." She pursed her lips and, expertly, imitated the red-winged blackbird's call: not the liquid piping of the wood thrush, which dipped down into the dry of the cricket's birr and up again in delerious,...
Whether we want to admit it or not, we are dependent on other pray-ers. In Matthew 9:38 Jesus said, "Pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth laborers into His harvest." Am I a laborer because someone, some time, some plac...
By the love I bear you, do not fear to speak to me of them." I drew myself to my full height. "I would always rather have to do with spiky truth than with comfortable lies. Always." I held out my right hand to him and he smiled and took it in his. "I...
Progress had not invaded, science had not enlightened, the little hamlet of Pieuvrot, in Brittany. They were a simple, ignorant, superstitious set who lived there, and the luxuries of civilization were known to them as little as its learning. They to...
A Chipewyan guide named Saltatha once asked a French priest what lay beyond the present life. 'You have told me heaven is very beautiful,' he said. 'Now tell me one more thing. Is it more beautiful than the country of the muskoxen in the summer, when...
NEW RULE: 'Kidiots' Leave the children behind. At least until they learn something. A new study has shown that half of American high schools agree that newspapers should only be able to publish government-approved material. Almost one out of five sai...
I am so sorry to hear of 's passing. I will miss his scientific insight and advice, but even more his humor and stubborn integrity. I remember when one of his colleagues complained about 's always rejecting his manuscript when they were sent to him t...
His long wait is almost done. I am sending Balon Swann to Sunspear, to deliver him the head of Gregor Clegane.” Ser Balon would have another task as well, but that part was best left unsaid. “Ah.” Ser Harys Swyft fumbled at his funny little bea...
Last week my boss told me to rewrite a twenty-page proposal on engagement benchmarking. I turned it in and he wrote a note on the cover that just said, "No, no. Not this." I had no idea what he wanted, so I just put it off, and then when he came in t...
[I] would argue that native-born blacks are so vastly less "African" than actual Africans that calling ourselves 'African American' is not only illogical but almost disrespectful to African immigrants. Here are people who were born in Africa, speak A...
Transfer must be the aim of all teaching in school - it is not an option - because when we teach, we can address only a relatively small sample of the entire subject matter. All teachers have said to themselves after a lesson "Oh, if only we had more...
You have terminated me,” one of them said in a strange, flat voice. “But I am one of many.” “Robots!” Iggy breathed, taking Total from Angel. “One of many, one of many, one of many,” the robot Eraser was saying. Now Nudge saw the red li...
I come home from work this evening there was a note in the frying pan said Fix Your Own Supper Babe I Run Off With The Fuller Brush Man Well I sat down at the table screamed & hollered & cried I commenced to carring on 'till I almost lost my mind and...
Waves of ice cold shock swept over Theo. Mrs. Dietrich, the woman who fed him chocolate cookies every time she pulled a sliver from his finger, the woman who’d tended him through every sickness and illness he’d had, the woman he loved as much as ...
The man who cannot listen to an argument which opposes his views either has a weak position or is a weak defender of it. No opinion that cannot stand discussion or criticism is worth holding. And it has been wisely said that the man who knows only ha...
And he began, "What chance or destiny has brought you here before your final day? And who is he who leads your pilgrimage?" "Up there in life beneath the quiet stars I lost my way," I answered, "in a valley, before I'd reached the fullness of my age....
If Jesus had been an actual historical figure we have a thorny paradox. Either this Jesus was a remarkable individual who said and did a host of amazing, revolutionary things – but no one outside his fringe cult noticed for over a century. Or he di...
Also, I’m not going to be devastated or anything either way. I’m not that kind of person. I just think if you don’t say the honest thing, sometimes the honest thing never becomes true, you know, and I—” she says, but then I hold up my finge...
