The feeling of love comes and goes on a whim; you can't control it. But the action of love is something you can do, regardless of how you are feeling.
You’ve found that there is something that can make you feel, and make you feel present: sex. Not the routine, dusk-and-dawn sex of a trusted, established relationship, but illicit, dangerous sex. Sex that is novel and leaves you sore; that is exper...
No, the events which I am about to describe were simply too monstrous, too shocking to appear in print. They still are. It is no exaggeration to suggest that they would tear apart the entire fabric of society and, particularly at a time of war, this ...
We naturally try to forget our personal tragedies, serious or trifling, as soon as possible (even something as petty as being scorned or disdained by a stranger on a street corner). We try not to carry these things over to tomorrow. It is not strange...
Her eyes narrowed with feigned disgust. "I cannot walk backwards anymore! I'm too afraid you'll run me into something." He released one of her hands and reached around her, to cup her firm behind. "Trust me. I'd never risk hurting your backside.
God, it's like reality's completely shifted on me. I used to think I was standing on such solid ground. If I wanted something badly enough, I just worked like hell for it. Now I can't decide what to do, which move to make. All the things I counted on...
I don't understand why people never say what they mean. It's like the immigrants who come to a country and learn the language but are completely baffled by idioms. (Seriously, how could anyone who isn't a native English speaker 'get the picture,' so ...
I always say the truth is best even when we find it unpleasant. Any rat in a sewer can lie. It's how rats are. It's what makes them rats. But a human doesn't run and hide in dark places, because he's something more. Lying is the most personal act of ...
All governments, even these precious “democracies,” derive all their power by force. Do something the government doesn’t want, like, say, cross the street against the light, refuse to submit to its authority, and it won’t be long before they�...
You may not believe in magic but something very strange is happening at this very moment. Your head has dissolved into thin air and I can see the rhododendrons through your stomach. It's not that you are dead or anything dramatic like that, it is sim...
Worry was my mother's mechanic, her mechanism for engaging with the machinery of living. Worry was an anchor for her, a hook, something to clutch on to in the world. Worry was a box to live inside of, worry a mechanism for evading the present, for re...
In biology, nothing is clear, everything is too complicated, everything is a mess, and just when you think you understand something, you peel off a layer and find deeper complications beneath. Nature is anything but simple.
Think it over carefully. This is very important," I say, "because to believe something, whatever it might be, is the doing of the mind. Do you follow? When you say you believe, you allow the possibility of disappointment. And from disappointment or b...
Sometimes the effect arrives thanks to a different kind of breakthrough: a dramatic increase in our ability to MEASURE something, and an improvement in the tools we build for measuring. New ways of measuring almost always imply new ways of making.
Suddenly, something fluttered down from the nest to rest at Chasmira's feet. She picked it up- A phoenix father. It glistened in the sunlight, and tracing her fingers along its edges, she marveled at its soft and delicate touch. Extending it to Aaron...
I had a dream about you. You were Mickey Mantle, and I was a fireplace without a mantle. I didn’t like baseball, so I kept telling you that you could do something productive with your life, like becoming a Tupperware salesman.
Being good is something that one must choose over and over again, every day, throughout the day, for the rest of one's life," Asher said. "A day is made of a thousand decisions, most small, some huge. With each decision you have the chance to work to...
I am a convinced believer that nothing is "as it is", but it is something that "can become", or we can make out of, if we put faith in our inner resources and feelings to bring the right impetus to the driving wheels of our lives’ mechanism. (Soar)
The youth. The youth of Africa. The youth of this world. Are we harnessing the potential of the youth enough? Are the young ones… giving off their best to the continent, the nation, the universe that is giving us so much? Why do we think we can onl...
It now lately sometimes seemed a black miracle to me that people could actually care deeply about a subject or pursuit, and could go on caring this way for years on end. Could dedicate their entire lives to it. It seemed admirable and at the same tim...
How’s yours?” inquires Marv soon after. “Or more to the point, what is it?” “Eggs and cheese and something.” “Do you even like eggs?” “No.” “Then why’d you get it?” “Well, it didn’t look like eggs when it was on that oth...
