I am an American, but a sense of otherness was part of my growing up. I spoke Norwegian before I spoke English. My mother is Norwegian.
I was raised to be kind. My parents were underdogs. Immigrant Jews. I spoke with an accent. I didn't speak English even - I spoke French and Yiddish mostly. I was picked on.
My father was an Episcopal minister, and for 14 years my family lived in China, in a city called Wuchang. We four children spoke Chinese before we spoke English. We left when the communists came, in the early 1930s. I was about 5 years old.
Jack Twist: Friend, that's more words than you've spoke in the past two weeks. Ennis Del Mar: Hell, that's the most I've spoke in a year.
I tell you: one must still have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star. I tell you: you have still chaos in you.
Sleep knocks on my eyes: they grow heavy. Sleep touches my mouth: it stays open. Truly, he comes to me on soft soles, the dearest of thieves, and steals my thoughts from me
There are many good inventions on earth, some useful, some pleasing: for their sake, the earth is to be loved. And there is such a variety of well-invented things that the earth is like the breasts of a woman: useful as well as pleasing.
You say 'I' and you are proud of this word. But greater than this- although you will not believe in it - is your body and its great intelligence, which does not say 'I' but performs 'I'.
Weariness that wants to reach the ultimate with one leap, with one fatal leap, a poor ignorant weariness that does not want to want any more: this created all gods and afterworlds.
She sat listening to the music. It was a symphony of triumph. The notes flowed up, they spoke of rising and they were the rising itself, they were the essence and the form of upward motion, they seemed to embody every human act and thought that had a...
I and me are always too deeply in conversation: how could I endure it, if there were not a friend? The friend of the hermit is always the third one: the third one is the float which prevents the conversation of the two from sinking into the depth.
I met the president when he was president-elect at a meeting in Austin. He spoke of his faith. He spoke of his desire for a compassionate conservatism, for a faith-based initiative that would do something for poor people.
Our faith in others betrays that we would rather have faith in ourselves. Our longing for a friend is our betrayer. And often with our love we want merely to overcome envy. And often we attack and make ourselves enemies, to conceal that we are vulner...
We walked always in beauty, it seemed to me. We walked and looked about, or stood and looked. Sometimes, less often, we would sit down. We did not often speak. The place spoke for us and was a kind of speech. We spoke to each other in the things we s...
All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall b...
It was suffering and incapacity that created all afterworlds - this, and that brief madness of bliss which is experienced only by those who suffer deeply. Weariness that wants to reach the ultimate with one leap, with one fatal leap, a poor ignorant ...
I see you exhausted by poisonous flies; I see you bleeding and torn at a hundred spots; and your pride refuses even to be angry. They would have blood from you in all innocence; blood is what bloodless souls crave - and therefore they sting in all in...
You tell me: 'Life is hard to bear.' But if it were otherwise why should you have your pride in the morning and your resignation in the evening? Life is hard to bear: but do not pretend to be so tender! We are all of us pretty fine asses and asseses ...
I entered KC College in 1975. When I came here for my interview, for my admission, every person I spoke to spoke to me in Sindhi. Be it Kundanani, Bhambani, Nichani, Kevalramani... and they also thought that Ambani was the same. For a moment, I thoug...
I am genuinely into soul, R&B and hip hop - all these genres that get slapped under the 'soul' genre. That spoke to me more than it did to my punk-rock friends. And punk spoke more to me than it did to my soul friends. I basically didn't fit comforta...
If a kiss could be seen I think it would look like a violet,' said Priscilla. Anne glowed. 'I'm so glad you spoke that thought, Priscilla, instead of just thinking it and keeping it to yourself. This world would be a much more interesting place…alt...
