One of underestimated tasks in nonfiction writing is to impose narrative shape on an unwieldy mass of material.
I take care to only teach courses about fiction film. I believe that this balances and broadens my documentary work.
While it can be pleasurable to move speedily through a work of fiction, there's a different sort of pleasure to be had in lingering, backtracking, rereading the same page.
'In Cold Blood' is not a thriller at all, really. It is, however, the first work of its kind: a true crime book that reads like fiction.
So much of contemporary crime fiction is painful to read and obsessed with violence, particularly against women, and I can't read that.
From its beginning, fan fiction has been written mostly by women. Originally, this was because of a dearth of interesting female characters in conventional sci-fi.
Are your principles not engraved in all hearts, and in order to learn your laws is it not enough to go back into oneself and listen to the voice of one's conscience in the silence of the passions? There you have true philosophy. Let us learn to be sa...
They say that Caliph Omar, when consulted about what had to be done with the library of Alexandria, answered as follows: 'If the books of this library contain matters opposed to the Koran, they are bad and must be burned. If they contain only the doc...
Now if there is anything in this universe for which we do not have an "inkling," it is the ultimate goal of the Creator. Erroneous notions regarding this goal often stem from the misconception that all existence exists for man alone. The foible in th...
Examine the lives of the best and more fruitful men and peoples, and ask yourselves whether a tree, if it is to grow proudly into the sky, can do without bad weather and storms: whether unkindness and opposition from without, whether some sort of hat...
What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself do...
Viagra isn't the only drug being prescribed off-label for women with arousal problems. Los Angeles urologist Jennifer Berman told me some doctors are prescribing low doses of Ritalin. Drugs like Ritalin improve a person's focus, so it stands to reaso...
It's a secret code," said Calvin. "Girls are not not like boys. If a boy wants to kill you, he says 'I'm going to kill you.' If a girl wants to kill you, she says, 'We need to talk.' That's the code." I gasped. "Has a girl ever wanted to talk to you?...
In the beginning of the eighteenth century, made the first serious attempt to apply the doctrine [ ] to the living world. In the latter part of it, , , and took up the work more vigorously and with better qualifications. The question of special creat...
As to Science, she has never sought to ally herself to civil power. She has never attempted to throw odium or inflict social ruin on any human being. She has never subjected anyone to mental torment, physical torture, least of all to death, for the p...
It’s possible that the reason I've never experienced a ghostly presence is that my temporal lobes aren't wired for it. It could well be that the main difference between skeptics (Susan Blackmore notwithstanding) and believers is the neural structur...
Looking to that future, there is every reason to believe that science and religion will both continue to flourish, to enlighten, to inspire; as well as to frustrate, to obfuscate, and to oppress. Some people may wish that one half of this essentiall...
Whereas modern cynicism brought despair about the ability of the human species to realize laudable ideals, postmodern cynicism doesn't — not because it's optimistic, but because it can't take ideals seriously in the first place. The prevailing atti...
If we recognize the power of entheogenic substances to open us to the universal truth and full dimension of human experience, and if we accept the role of the shaman as hierophant and psychopomp into this realm, as enacted for example by the Huichol ...
our moral reasoning is plagued by two illusions. The first illusion can be called the wag-the-dog illusion: We believe that our own moral judgment (the dog) is driven by our own moral reasoning (the tail). The second illusion can be called the wag-th...
Just as we have created a society in which it would be unthinkable to light up a cigarette in the Kennedy Center lobby, we can create a society where it is unthinkable that a child suffers abuse, fails in school, becomes delinquent, or faces teasing ...
