Did you know Grandfather would give the poems to me?” I ask. “We thought he might,” my mother says. “Why didn’t you stop him?” “We didn’t want to take away your choices,” my mother says. “But Grandfather never did tell me about th...
In the South American rainforest, there is a tribe called the Desana, who see the world as a fixed quantity of energy that flows between all creatures. Every birth must therefore engender a death, and every death brings forth another birth. This way,...
Did you know it takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile? I know, because yesterday was in a bad mood, and I guess I must have frowned too much because this morning I woke up with a torn groin muscle.
In other words, I have tried to learn in my writing a monastic lesson I could probably not have learned otherwise: to let go of my idea of myself, to take myself with more than one grain of salt... In religious terms, this is simply a matter of accep...
It may be a cat, a bird, a ferret, or a guinea pig, but the chances are high that when someone close to you dies, a pet will be there to pick up the slack. Pets devour the loneliness. They give us purpose, responsibility, a reason for getting up in t...
Frodo raised his head, and then stood up. Despair had not left him, but the weakness had passed. He even smiled grimly, feeling now as clearly as a moment before he had felt the opposite, that what he had to do, he had to do, if he could, and that wh...
Heart beats fast Colors and promises How do be brave How can I love when I'm afraid To fall But watching you stand alone All of my doubt Suddenly goes away somehow One step closer I have died everyday waiting for you Darling, don't be afraid I have l...
How about I take you to my studio? Much less dangerous. Plus, I need a model and you could sit for me." "You want me to sit for a portrait?" I asked stunned. "Actually, at the moment I'm concentrating on full-length nudes, in the spirit of Modigliani...
When you're having an asthma attack, you don't have any breath. When you don't have any breath, it's hard to speak. You're limited by the amount of air you can spend from your lungs. That's not much, something between three to six words. It gives the...
Fear, sadness. They’re not weaknesses. They are overpowering, defining emotions. They make you human, Sophie.” “They are signs of defect,” I told him, reverting back to curt Sophie. “Says who?” “Me.” “Why?” “Because I — becaus...
Even if these researchers do see the need to address the problem immediately, though they have obligations and legitimate interests elsewhere, including being funded for other research. With luck, the ideas discussed in Good Calories, Bad Calories ma...
My only companion from the outside world during nineteen years of isolation has been my personal hatred of Thursday Next. It's kind of like the old me suddenly taking over, and I promised myself that this was how I would act if I ever saw you.' 'I ha...
If you were determined to get enjoyment out of every moment, you would learn to do whatever it took. What it takes is not listening to negative thoughts, yours or anyone else's. Disregarding negative thoughts isn't hiding our head in the sand, but si...
Could I speak to you for a moment, madam?' said Nannie to Agnes. It was at moments of crisis like this that Mary chiefly envied her Aunt Agnes's imperturbable disposition. Most mothers feel a hideous sinking at the heart when these fatal words are pr...
I don't want these. They're mud and they've got no color. Or at least the color is different from what I'm used to. Take any American city, in autumn, or in winter, when the light makes the colors dance and flow, and look at it from a distant hill or...
Do you wanna go out for lunch? In celebration?” I asked and then touched my lips in thought. “Or we could swing by the store and get something really good for dinner?” Wesley glanced at me sideways with a puzzled expression I couldn’t figure ...
But can I say, now that she is dead, long dead that I only half believed in her. I wanted, I needed her to revolt. I know, revolutions take vast energy like volcanic eruptions. I know. And the sick must husband their resources even as they are resour...
Of course, he showed me this one afternoon when he was skipping class. When trolls cut classes, you think they are losers. When the beautiful and/or reasonably erudite do the same thing to sit on the library steps and read poetry, you think they are ...
The nation has been turned upside down and inside out. The country that was once discovered by people seeking religious freedom is now oppressing religious rights. It has been a slow train rumbling down the track of destruction since the 1960's. It s...
Another great example of the power of vulnerability -- this time in a corporation -- is the leadership approach taken by Lululemon's CEO, Christine Day. In a video interview with CNN Money, Day explained that she was once a very bright, smart executi...
They had pulled me from the hemorrhaging, dying body of my mother and turned me over to the care of the man who was not my father. He had taken me home to their tiny apartment above the old hardware store and done what little he knew to take care of ...
