Curran strode toward me, eyes blazing. "If I let her go, I'll need a replacement. Want to volunteer for the job." He looked like he wouldn't be taking no for an anser. I swiped Slayer from its sheath and backed away from the edge of the roof. "And be...
Dear Aspiring Writer, you are not ready. Stop. Put that finished story away and start another one. In a month, go back and look at the first story. RE-EDIT it. Then send it to a person you respect in the field who will be hard on you. Pray for many m...
Captain Harvile: Poor Phoebe, she would not have forgotten him so soon. It was not in her nature. Anne Elliot: It would not be in the nature of any woman who truly loved. Captain Harvile: Do you claim that for your sex? Anne Elliot: We do not forget ...
The Trifler Death's the lover that I'd be taking; Wild and fickle and fierce is he. Small's his care if my heart be breaking- Gay young Death would have none of me. Hear them clack of my haste to greet him! No one other my mouth had kissed. I had dre...
How Did You Die? Did you tackle that trouble that came your way With a resolute heart and cheerful? Or hide your face from the light of day With a craven soul and fearful? Oh, a trouble's a ton, or a trouble's an ounce, Or a trouble is what you make ...
{ } I do so wish, that, in all these big questions, literary men would take more for a guide than they do, or seem to do. You have, of course, an immense constituency; but your love of letters and your deeply poetic spirit render you worthy of a far ...
Somebody said it couldn't be done. But he with a chuckle replied, That maybe it couldn't, but he would be one Who wouldn't say so 'till he'd tried. So he buckled right in with a trace of a grin On his face. If he worried, he hid it. He started to sin...
I've been actively engaged with mythic imagery ever since I picked up that Rackham book, but it really came into focus for me when I moved from London to the country. As I walked the extraordinary landscape of Dartmoor, I looked at the trees and the ...
Much of life, fatherhood included, is the story of knowledge acquired too late: if only I’d known then what I know now, how much smarter, abler, stronger, I would have been. But nothing really prepares you for kids, for the swells of emotion that r...
I mean, in the last few months alone, I've been pinned in a big set of white-water rapids, been bitten by an angry snake in a jungle, had a close escapewith a big mountain rockfall, narrowly avoided being eaten by a huge croc in the Australian swamps...
I can certainly throw out some observation about the process of creating which may be of use. Firstly, it's the best & the worst of worlds, because the only fuel you have to make the fire blaze on the page / screen is the stuff of your own being. An ...
What's the first sign of a lurking, hidden expectation you didn't know you had? Pain! People don't do what we want, things don't happen quickly enough, the weather doesn't cooperate, our bodies don't cooperate. Why are these moments so painful? Becau...
Well that ain’t so. You get babies from each other. But there’s this man, too—he has all these babies just waitin‘ to wake up, he breathes life into ’em…” Dill was off again. Beautiful things floated around in his dreamy head. He could ...
Heavy is the head that holds the pen of creation. We construct these characters from nothing, molding them from our imaginations. We give them hopes and dreams and unique personalities until they feel so real you’re mind believes it must be so. We ...
Our lives are mere flashes of light in an infinitely empty universe. In 12 years of education the most important lesson I have learned is that what we see as “normal” living is truly a travesty of our potential. In a society so governed by superf...
Son, never trust a man who doesn’t drink because he’s probably a self-righteous sort, a man who thinks he knows right from wrong all the time. Some of them are good men, but in the name of goodness, they cause most of the suffering in the world. ...
People have seen that I intend to sweep away everything we have been taught to consider - without question - as grace and beauty; but have overlooked my work to substitute a vaster beauty, touching all objects and beings, not excluding the most despi...
Today you are encouraged to take action. Thinking and doing are two very different things. Success never comes to look for you while you wait around thinking about it. You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do. Knowledge is basically useless ...
Most of us waste this extraordinary thing called life. We have lived forty or sixty years, have gone to the office, engaged ourselves in social activity, escaping in various forms, and at the end of it, we have nothing but an empty, dull, stupid life...
Ron Franz: I'm going to miss you when you go. Christopher McCandless: I will miss you too, but you are wrong if you think that the joy of life comes principally from the joy of human relationships. God's place is all around us, it is in everything an...
Kirk: Kirk to Enterprise. Spock: Spock here. Kirk: Captain Spock, damage report. Spock: Admiral, if we go "by the book". like Lieutenant Saavik, hours could seem like days. Kirk: I read you captain. Let's have it. Spock: The situation is grave, Admir...
