Tough experiences teflon coat you and strengthen you against further adversity...Bad things happen. And yet the sun still comes up the next day. And it's up to you to carry on living your life and keeping your setbacks in perspective. You also have t...
High buildings fall, black oceans rise, and coins sink in height Where weapons smash in every grace, with every black and white The east drops, the west too, children die and so do old With every sin, and every crime, people drop by their gold The gr...
But Aunt Habiba said not to worry, that everyone had wonderful things hidden inside. The only difference was that some managed to share those wonderful things, and others did not. Those who did not explore and share the precious gifts within went thr...
Then, in spite of everything, he began to smile. So much of his existence in Everlost had been full of despair. Despair, and a fear of losing what he had. But Allie was not lost, she was just there across the river, waiting for him to find her. Nick ...
It has seemed to me sometimes as though the Lord breathes on this poor gray ember of Creation and it turns to radiance - for a moment or a year or the span of a life. And then it sinks back into itself again, and to look at it no one would know it ha...
Training?'Clary echoed."But we trained yesterday." "Some of us have to train everyday,Clary."Jace didnt sound angry,but there was a harshness to his tone,and Clary flushed."Ill see you later,"he added without looking at her,and practically flung hims...
Remember when we made love in the rain? You asked me to bring protection, and I brought a windshield wiper. That was my first time. I had never driven in the rain before that. I didn’t even own a car. I was saving up money and buying car parts one ...
But somebody else had spoken Snape’s name, quite softly. “Severus . . .” The sound frightened Harry beyond anything he had experienced all evening. For the first time, Dumbledore was pleading. Snape gazed for a moment at Dumbledore, and there w...
Yes, I hate orthodox criticism. I don't mean great criticism, like that of Matthew Arnold and others, but the usual small niggling, fussy-mussy criticism, which thinks it can improve people by telling them where they are wrong, and results only in pu...
Josh stared at Kate. She was watching the happy couple, smiling. The warm spring breeze caught her hair and ruffled it like a shining curtain in an open window. It also caught her dress, flipping up the front and giving him an eyeful of long, slender...
Bah, he still saw the same stupidity. The image of the hanged man in the farming community of Yondern flashed through his mind. Now there was a war brewing between the Steelwielders and some foreign religion. More mindless loss over beliefs and mytho...
On the edge of a tropical ocean, in a thousand reflections of the silver light of an invisible moon, among undulations of restless waters, ceaselessly changing... Among silent breakers, the tremors of the shining surface, in the swift flux and reflux...
A vision of the Shining One swirling into our world, a monstrous, glorious flaming pillar of incarnate, eternal Evil--of people passing through its radiant embrace into that hideous, unearthly life-in-death which I had seen enfold the sacrifices--of ...
Back home, my favorite part of Mass was during communion, when I'd stand at the rail and hold a little gold platter under people's chins. The pretty girls would line up for communion (I confess to Almighty God). They'd kneel (and to you my brothers a...
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea But sad mortality o’ersways their power, How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower? O! how shall summer’s honey breath hold out Against the wrackful...
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, And too often is his gold complex...
Conversion can also occur among those who already have the faith. Christians will become real Christians, with less façade and more foundation. Catastrophe will divide them from the world, force them to declare their basic loyalties; it will revive ...
Just then, just when I thought I would be free from the repeated blows to my tender head of the Stupidity Hammer, the Stupidity Hammer rose up from the shining screen, drew back, whirled hugely, and with great force and might and main slammed me righ...
In your rare embrace, sometimes I am lost nowadays. In these years, you have changed. I have changed. Every single day, we’re fighting our feuds silently; inventing devious ways to hurt one another. Our gazes keep to our feet: wavering, pirouetting...
It was so late and she’d be sleeping He came through her home town With the moonlight on the crossroads And the green light shining down And the bell at the railroad crossing And the horn from far away And his Silver Eagle passing Half a mile from ...
My brunette with the golden eyes, your ivory body, your amber Has left bright reflections in the room Above the garden. The clear midnight sky, under my closed lids, Still shines… I am drunk from so many roses Redder than wine. Leaving their garden...
