each year India produces thousands upon thousands of eighteen-year olds who have little to no instructed idea of the last sixty years of Indian history. They have no idea if or how those five-year plans worked. They have no idea if or how the Non-Ali...
The fences I thought meant security were the walls of a prison instead…A fearful spirit is never from the Lord (2 Timothy 1:7). It’s the prison, not the cliff, that’s the scary place. It’s awful to realize that my female anxieties can hinder ...
Humility is just as much the opposite of self-abasement as it is of self-exaltation. To be humble is not to make comparisons. Secure in its reality, the self is neither better nor worse, bigger nor smaller, than anything else in the universe. It *is*...
I realize that what happened in Bosnia could happen anywhere in the world, particularly in places that are diverse and have a history of conflict. It only takes bad leadership for a country to go up in flames, for people of different ethnicity, color...
I touched the moon last night; a golden glow beyond my grasp. Eons before me it rested there. It will remain when I am dust. My hand now glows from the embrace. Voices echo through nights past, and with the glow, caress my face. My finger faints from...
With the world securely in order, Dain was able to devote the leisurely bath time to editing his mental dictionary. He removed his wife from the general category labeled "Females" and gave her a section of her own. He made a note that she didn't find...
I don't think anyone aims to be typical, really. Most people even vow to themselves some time in high school or college not to be typical. But still, they just kind of loop back to it somehow. Like the circular rails of a train at an amusement park, ...
And an even worse example, I think, than the cheapening of the word CHARITY is the new newspaper cheapening of the word COURAGE. Any man living in complete luxury and security who chooses to write a play or a novel which causes a flutter and exchange...
Aurora sagged. "Why is it," she asked, "that every time I'm with you two we end up stealing something big?" "We always return it," Donegan said, a little defensively. "Maybe not always in one piece or necessarily to the right person but return it we ...
The borderline Queen experiences what therapists call "oral greediness". The desperate hunger of the borderline Queen is akin to the behavior of an infant who had gone too long between feelings. Starved, frustrated, and beyond the ability to calm of ...
Soul is not even that Crackerjack prize that God and Satan scuffle over after the worms have all licked our bones. That's why, when we ponder--as sooner or later each of us must--exactly what we ought to be doing about our soul, religion is the wrong...
Let us be dissatisfied until America will no longer have high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds. Let us be dissatisfied until the tragic walls that separate the outer city of wealth and comfort from the inner city of poverty and despair...
A brief hush fell over the table when the guy from the bar approached. After he finished depositing their drinks in the center of the table, Lynn jumped on the opportunity to flirt, winking and smiling prettily at him. “Thanks, cowboy.” “Cowboy...
No one knows our bodies or our subjective experiences like we do. This means we can rest secure in our knowledge of ourselves and what we’re going through, even when the medical profession doesn’t understand or believe us. Migraine is a weird and...
I am amazed at the heart of man: It possesses the substance of wisdom as well as the opposites contrary to it ... for if hope arises in it, it is brought low by covetousness: and if covetousness is aroused in it, greed destroys it. If despair possess...
If there’s a single idea I emphasize when people ask about writing, it’s that there’s no right way to produce a book. But I do think that whatever you do, you should do regularly, whether it’s waking up at midnight and drinking vodka or wakin...
Unconditional parental love is the indespensible nutrient for the child's healthy emotional growth. The first task is to create space in the child's heart for the certainty that she is precisely the person the parents want and love. She does not have...
Damon Macready: [Damon is studying security videos and blueprints for Frank D'Amico's building] We've gotta get *over* it, on *top* of it, and then *into* it! Right in the middle of it! Mindy Macready: [looks up from the computer screen she's been st...
Jack Valentine: Do you know why I do what I do? I mean, there are more prestigeous assignments. Keeping track of nuclear arsenels - you'd think that be more critical to world security. But it's not. No, nine out of ten war victims today are killed wi...
[last lines] President Barack Obama: I tell you what, security has any other messages, you call *me*. Rizwan Khan: Good, good. Can I have your number, please? Mandira Khan: Ah, thank you Mr. President. President Barack Obama: Thank you. Mandira Khan:...
Col. Quaritch: [addressing marines] Everyone on this base, every one of you, is fighting for survival, and that's a fact. There's an aboriginal horde out there massing for an attack. These orbital images tell me that the hostile numbers have gone fro...
