Maybe the first time you saw her you were ten. She was standing in the sun scratching her legs. Or tracing letters in the dirt with a stick. Her hair was being pulled. Or she was pulling someone's hair. And a part of you was drawn to her, and a part ...
The authentic human being is one of us who instinctively knows what he should not do, and, in addition, he will balk at doing it. He will refuse to do it, even if this brings down dread consequences to him and to those whom he loves. This, to me, is ...
I didn't plan on either children or writing. Once I realized that writing satisfied me in some enormous way, I had to make adjustments. The writing was always marginal in terms of time when the children were small. But it was major in terms of my hea...
The child, screaming for refuge, senses how feeble a shelter the twig hut of grown-up awareness is. They claim strength, these parents, and complete sanctuary. The weeping earth itself knows how desperate is the child's need for exactly that sanctuar...
Without thinking, I knelt in the grass, like someone meaning to pray. When I tried to stand again, I couldn't move, my legs were utterly rigid. Does grief change you like that? Through the birches, I could see the pond. The sun was cutting small whit...
The mother memories that are closest to my heart are the small gentle ones that I have carried over from the days of my childhood. They are not profound, but they have stayed with me through life, and when I am very old, they will still be near . . ....
Congenital disease can warp the heart with great variety. Valves can be sealed tight, missing parts—or absent altogether. Major vessels can be misplaced, narrowed, or blocked completely. A chamber can be too small or missing, a wall too thick or th...
I don’t know what it is that comes over me, but suddenly I’m crossing to his side of the table and sitting down in his lap, arms wrapping around his neck. His lips are soft against mine, and when I part them he tenderly obliges, tasting me delica...
Eros (or call it lust if you will), is like a beautiful, magnificent Afghan Hound! A pure white Afghan Hound commanding respect and honor! But if you take the Afghan Hound and lock it in a small cage, shun it and look upon it badly, treat it as a pes...
God is funny. He had a funny day when he made me. A funny, thoughtful, crazy day. He gave me a physique by which I would be so easily and so quickly judged, then gave me a mind by which I would so deeply magnetize, He put within me a heart with small...
My mother, who is a pianist and a fine artist, purchased a piano for me. Twice. This was back when I was a small girl. Pianos, of course, came complete with the quintessential piano teacher who whacked my hand with a stick each time I struck the wron...
I woke up early and took the first train to take me away from the city. The noise and all its people. I was alone on the train and had no idea where I was going, and that’s why I went there. Two hours later we arrived in a small town, one of those ...
You have been spying all along," Conrad said, unconvinced. "The manhunt for you was a ruse." "Check with the emperor," Ferrin replied coolly. ... "That will not take long," said a man in the corner, studiously picking at a fingernail with a small kni...
the sense of a small courageous community barely existing above the desert of trees, hemmed in by a sun too fierce to work under and a darkness filled with evil spirits - love was an arm round the neck, a cramped embrace in the smoke, wealth a little...
If there is a place in heaven for Labrador Retrievers (and I trust there is or I won't go) it'll have to have a brook right smack in the middle - a brook with little thin shoals for wading and splashing; a brook with deep, still pools where they can ...
A great many small failures have brought me to this Dark room where, against the teachings of the church, I lie in the forgiving dark with you and we kiss And loosen our clothing and feel the hot urge Toward nakedness, man's natural destination, The ...
The sage of Nazareth may satisfy those who have never faced the problem of evil in their own lives; but to talk about an ideal to those who are under the thralldom of sin is a cruel mockery. Yet if Jesus was merely a man like the rest of men, then an...
We were just sitting there talking when Peter Maurin came in. We were just sitting there talking when lines of people began to form saying, "We need bread."....If there were six small loaves and a few fishes, we had to divide them. There was always b...
The Babar the Elephant book is sitting in front of me. I pick it up and start reading it. I remember reading it as a small Boy and enjoying it and imagining that I was friends with Babar, his constant Companion during all of his adventures. He went t...
Someone knocked me down; I pushed Brinker over a small slope; someone was trying to tackle me from behind. Everywhere there was the smell of vitality in clothes, the vital something in wool and flannel and corduroy which spring releases. I had forgot...
[Clementine comes in drunk and collapses on the couch. Joel has been sitting up and reading; his voice is angry] Joel: It's 3 o'clock. Clementine: I kinda sorta wrecked your car. Joel: You were driving drunk. It's pathetic. Clementine: I was a little...
