Does it stand, but not straight enough? Is there a bend in the tool? Leaning left like the Marxist-Leninist Party? To the right, like the Jan Sangh fascists? Or wobbling mindlessly in the middle, like the Congress Party? Fear not, for it can be strai...
John Keating: We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and neces...
Ferris: I'm so disappointed in Cameron! Twenty bucks says he's in his car right now debating on whether or not to go out. Cameron: [Cameron's in his car] He'll keep calling me. He'll keep calling me until I come over. He'll make me feel guilty. This ...
Stanley Goodspeed: You broke out, let me see if I can get this straight, down the incinerator chute, on the mine car, through the tunnels to the power plant, under the steam engine - that was really cool by the way - and into the cistern through the ...
Gail: [to the Oldtown Girls] We'll fight the cops, the mob, and anybody else who tries to move in on us. We'll go to war. Dwight: Don't be stupid, Gail. Get me a car. Gail: Who do you think you are? You got what you wanted out of us. [Gail puts the g...
A philosophical thought is not supposed to be impervious to all criticism; this is the error Whitehead describes of turning philosophy into geometry, and it is useful primarily as a way of gaining short-term triumphs in personal arguments that no one...
When Jesus was wrapping up his days on earth, he didn't tell us to go to church. He didn't tell us to engage in a spiritualized version of channel surfing, as we hop from place to place in search of just the right programming to entertain us. He told...
I did not see Pirahã teenagers moping, sleeping in late, refusing to accept responsibility for their own actions, or trying out what they considered to be radically new approaches to life. They in fact are highly productive and conformist members of...
Have you ever seen Russian nesting dolls?” Thrown by the questions, she opened her eyes. Why would he suddenly speak about a child’s toy? “I own a few of them.” “Then you must understand that undressing you is like playing with one of those...
Have you ever considered what Adam and Eve were doing when they got into so much trouble? As I read the story, they were shopping. The forbidden fruit was not scattered throughout the garden, not in many places, not in multiple locations, but one pla...
The case for the humanities is not hard to make, though it can be difficult--to such an extent have we been marginalized, so long have we acceded to that marginalization--not to sound either defensive or naive. The humanities, done right, are the cru...
There are five people you meet in heaven," the Blue Man suddenly said. "Each of us was in your life for a reason. You may not have known the reason at the time, and that is what heaven is for. For understanding your life on Earth." Eddie looked confu...
Mostly we tell the story of our lives, or mostly we're taught to tell it, as a quest to avoid suffering, though if your goal is a search for meaning, honor, experience, the same events may be victories or necessary steps. Then the personal matters; i...
The Good Lord Bird don't run in a flock. He Flies alone. You know why? He's searching. Looking for the right tree. And when he sees that tree, that dead tree that's taking all the nutrition and good things from the forest floor. He goes out and he gn...
There is an old story from the Eastern tradition that says that when the gods created the universe, they found a place for everything but the truth, and this created a problem, because the gods did not want this wisdom discovered right away. One of t...
Being the bearer of bad news is a terrible thing; sometimes you don't know if you'll have the words, the delicacy,the strength. You think of the person on the other side: how you're about to bring their world crashing down with a single phone call an...
He found himself remembering how on one summer morning they two had started from New York in search of happiness. They had never expected to find it, perhaps, yet in itself that quest had been happier than anything he expected forevermore. Life, it s...
We can never stop searching for Heaven, since there is always more of it than we can see. There, as in those tales that evolve endlessly into other tales, stories have no end. They are hardly ever the stories you know, the official ones, in which wis...
Wow. I didn't think I'd ever see you like that." Cam trembled; he couldn't help it. He felt like his body was not his own. "Like what?" "So..." Sasha seemed to search for the right word. "Involved, maybe? On-screen, you all seem kinda cold. I guess I...
It is less appealing, but morally more urgent, to understand the actions of the perpetrators. The moral danger, after all, is never that one might become a victim but that one might be a perpetrator or a bystander. It is tempting to say that a Nazi m...
Sensing my delight at seeing his laptop, Tom asked me, "William, have you ever seen the Internet?" "No." In a quiet conference room, Tom sat me down at his computer and explained the track pad, how the motion of my fingers guided the arrow on the scr...
