-Good thing you don’t own a mirror, Mr. Mirrorless, or you’d see how ugly you are. -What makes you think I don’t own a mirror? Every face that ever looks at me tells me that I’m ugly. But every time I make them laugh, I get to show them wh...
We've also evolved the ability to simply 'pay it forward': I help you, somebody else will help me. I remember hearing a parable when I was younger, about a father who lifts his young son onto his back to carry him across a flooding river. 'When I am ...
Two Songs For The World's End I Bombs ripen on the leafless tree under which the children play. And there my darling all alone dances in the spying day. I gave her nerves to feel her pain, I put her mortal beauty on. I taught her love that hate might...
The only grown-up other than Jacob who ever came into his schoolroom was Eli Willard. School was in session one day when the Connecticut itinerant reappeared after long absence, bringing Jacob's glass and other merchandise. Jacob seized him and prese...
(about William Blake) As for Blake's happiness--a man who knew him said: "If asked whether I ever knew among the intellectual, a happy man, Blake would be the only one who would immediately occur to me." And yet this creative power in Blake did not c...
I am too alone in the world, and yet not alone enough to make every moment holy. I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough just to lie before you like a thing, shrewd and secretive. I want my own will, and I want simply to be with my will, as ...
From a distance,' he says, 'my car looks just like every other car on the freeway, and Sarah Byrnes looks just like the rest of us. And if she's going to get help, she'll get it from herself or she'll get it from us. Let me tell you why I brought thi...
Hey I'm sorry about the other day. Didn't mean to give you a hard time, I ---" He held up his hands. "It's no problem. And I didn't mean to be pushy. But i've seen a lot of people let the bad around them make them hard or stubborn. In the end, they m...
It's your world, but I make my way in it. At fifteen, no, I couldn't stand up to you. The age of illusions, when we know nothing, we hope for everything; we're wandering in a mist ... And the half of the world that's never had any use for us, suddenl...
, . I felt silly for even mentioning it, but once I did, I knew I had to explain. "When I was a kid, "I had this puzzle with all fifty states on it--you know, the kind where you have to fit them all together. And one day I got it in my head that Cali...
...He kissed me again, farther up my neck, and I pushed him back against the wall. My mind searched for the logical thought, a rational life raft before I drowned in wanting to hiss him. I managed, "We've only met a few days ago. We don't know each o...
Have you ever been in love? Horrible, isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up this whole armor, f...
I thought all I had to do to get you back was kill off your so-called mother and that little girl. No, I also pondered eating you alive. I imagined drinking all your blood and swallowing you whole many times. A thousand times...no, a million times ov...
The day has been so full of fret and care, and our hearts have been so full of evil and of bitter thoughts, and the world has seemed so hard and wrong to us. Then Night, like some great loving mother, gently lays her hand upon our fevered head, and t...
From my insufficiency to my perfection, and from my deviation to my equilibrium From my sublimity to my beauty, and from my splendor to my majesty From my scattering to my gathering, and from my rejection to my communion From my baseness to my precio...
And I do. I do wonder, I think about it all the time. What it would be like to kill myself. Because I never really know, I still can't tell the difference, I'm never quite certain whether or not I'm actually alive. I sit here every single day. Run, I...
He dumped its contents out on the tablecloth: a gold ring, a gold nugget, and a gold signet seal. Francisco pointed to each. I told you that this was the secret of happiness. The three objects belonged to a rich collector. When he was asleep they arg...
Vespers Little Boy kneels at the foot of the bed, Droops on the little hands little gold head. Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares! Christopher Robin is saying his prayers. God bless Mummy. I know that's right. Wasn't it fun in the bath tonight? The cold's...
Tell me what you do with the food you eat, and I'll tell you who you are. Some turn their food into fat and manure, some into work and good humor, and others, I'm told, into God. So there must be three sorts of men. I'm not one of the worst, boss, no...
A Gift for You I send you... The gift of a letter from your wise self. This is the part of you that sees you with benevolent, loving eyes. You find this letter in a thick envelope with your name on it, and the word YES written boldly above your name....
When you left you left behind a field of silent flowers under a sky full of unstirred clouds...you left a million butterflies mid-silky flutters You left like midnight rain against my dreaming ears Oh and how you left leaving my coffee scentless and ...