Any time someone gives you drugs, the purpose is to subdue. Always. Whether it is from a dealer, a friend, your mother/brother/sister/son, or your government--especially your government--the intention is to subdue, and always to feed another motive. ...
When you feel great delight in someone, meeting their needs and getting their gratitude and affection in return is extremely rewarding to your ego. At those times you may be acting more out of the desire to get that love and satisfaction yourself, ra...
It seems almost oxymoronic to believe that this new idealism has led to a new pessimism about marriage, but that is exactly what has happened. In generations past there was far less talk about "compatibility" and finding the ideal soul mate. Today we...
Staring out to sea, I finally forced myself to stop thinking of her as someone still somewhere, if only in memory, still obscurely alive, breathing, doing, moving, but as a shovelful of ashes already scattered; as a broken link, a biological dead end...
We lose track of everything, and of everyone, even ourselves. The facts of my father's life are less known to me than those of the life of Hadrian. My own existence, if I had to write of it, would be reconstructed by me from externals, laboriously, a...
Feminism has fought no wars. It has killed no opponents. It has set up no concentration camps, starved no enemies, practiced no cruelties. Its battles have been for education, for the vote, for better working conditions, for safety in the streets, fo...
So you actually need spectacles,” Leo finally said. “Of course I do,” Marks said crossly. “Why would I wear spectacles if I didn’t need them?” “I thought they might be part of your disguise.” “My disguise?” “Yes, Marks, disguise...
What do you think we should do about Sampson?" I asked. "I would have to say...stop him," Sam said. "How?" I asked her. "Someone who is as powerful and as smart and crazy as he is should do it." "Okay, but who?" "Well...you should." "So you think I'm...
One of the misconceptions about atheism is that it somehow means someone denies the possibility of a deity. In all actuality, it simply means you don’t believe it to be the case — a point that should not be hard to understand with the complete la...
I attended a breakfast meeting with Fielding...half way through...the cork of nausea abruptly popped in my throat. I only just made it to the adjacent can, which was large and acoustical; my imitation of an exploding hippopotamus came through the clo...
I remember being a teenager and being ashamed of my musical tastes, at least some of them. My Brian Wilson and Beach Boys fandom, which is as important to me as anything else, was almost like a porn stash. Hide that shit, someone's coming! You couldn...
One night, I was out driving with a few friends of mine when the police pulled us over. We were told we fit the description of someone who had committed a robbery or stolen a car, though I don't really know what kind of description that could have be...
I don’t know if it was just me making things up in my head but after the fear in their eyes had gone what replaced it was like a sad kind of wondering. A wondering of where the old me was hiding. A wondering about where the old me had gone to. It w...
New Rule: You can't put a windmill in your campaign ad if you voted against every single bill that might lead to someone building one. As long as you're sending a camera crew to a farm, why not just take a picture of actual bullshit?
New Rule: If you married a manic-depressive, three of your children died, and while you were president civil war broke out and someone shot you in the head, your coin really shouldn't say, "In God We Trust.
Grow up, Bailey." "That is precisely what I'm doing," Bailey says. "I don't care if you don't understand that. Staying here won't make me happy. It will make you happy because you're insipid and boring, and an insipid, boring life is enough for you. ...
There's magic in that. It's in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict. From the mundane to the profound. You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone's soul, bec...
Gregorius was never to forget this scene. They were his first Portuguese words in the real world and they worked. That words could cause something in the world, make someone move or stop, laugh or cry: even as a child he had found it enigmatic and it...
If someone says, "You can make it!" down a vertical mountain when you don't ski very well, think about it before launching. This can be a turning point in your life. It sure was in mine when I slammed into the mountain. I wish I'd said, "F'getabout i...
I don't know what you think of me. And you certainly would never picture us together. But probably peanut butter was just peanut butter for a long time, before someone ever thought of pairing it with jelly. And there was salt, but it started to taste...
I didn't let her go. She went. It's not my fault. She did it. She could undo it. This is feeling so fucking famliar. Why do we even bother? Why do we make ourselves so open to such easy damage? Is it all loneliness? Is it all fear? Of is it just to e...
