We mistakenly assume that bodily survival has a higher precedence than ego survival. This is simply not generally true. Ego will happily destroy the body for its own sake. Look at overweight executives headed for heart attacks on the way to getting t...
Do you always blindly follow orders from your master? You are no more than a common mutt,’ Varg growled. Tain laughed. ‘He is not my master, jotun. I serve no god, so I certainly serve no man, not even The Serpent himself. I am merely interested ...
Marc had grown up, gotten away from the partying lifestyle that made him feel as if his mere presence was a gift to those around him and knew himself for what he'd truly been back then. A fool. Hopelessly in love with a friend who'd never wanted more...
I had a dream about you. I walked by and you whistled like I was a piece of meat. And I was a piece of meat—I was a thin slice of ham. You were two pieces of bread, so we made love like most mothers make lunch for their kids. That sounded dirtier t...
I was supposed to attend a conference in Toledo, but rather than travel, I lobbied City Counsel to change our town’s name to Toledo. I should be a politician. Not only would I save the taxpayers on travel expenses, but I could do my job without doi...
I saw an old woman walking in the rain, and rather than offer her an umbrella, I offered her advice. I said, “Rejoice in the rain. Pretend you’ve just exited the desert.” I knew my words impacted her because she shivered in delight. I should be...
She wished he could make her somehow indelibly his; that they were still children so they could cut their fingers and mingle their blood and know this meant something. She longed for some transformation more lasting than that wrought by the law and h...
We will do anything to get away from our own pain. We will change our lives, rip people out, swallow a bottle of life-ending pills. When we hurt more than we can bear, when our lives get that dark, it's shocking what we will do to protect ourselves.
A twenty-three-year-long study in Ohio determined that people who saw growing older as something positive lived a whopping seven and a half years longer than those who didn’t. (356)
It never takes longer than a few minutes, when they get together, for everyone to revert to the state of nature, like a party marooned by a shipwreck. That's what a family is. Also the storm at sea, the ship, and the unknown shore. And the hats and t...
We live in a time that demands a discourse of both critique and possibility, one that recognizes that without an informed citizenry, collective struggle, and viable social movements, democracy will slip out of our reach and we will arrive at a new st...
At no point does anyone in the chain know what to do with money in the real economy. But in an indefinite world, people actually prefer unlimited optionality; money is more valuable than anything you could possibly do with it. Only in a definite futu...
Ester asked why people are sad. "That’s simple," says the old man. "They are the prisoners of their personal history. Everyone believes that the main aim in life is to follow a plan. They never ask if that plan is theirs or if it was created by ano...
Esther asks why peaple are sad . "That's simple," says the old man. "They ara the prioners of their personal history. Everyone believes that the main aim in life is to follow a plan. They never ask if that plan is theirs or if it was created by anoth...
Pretty mountains, pretty river, bumpy but pleasant tar road... old buildings, old people on a front porch... strange how old, obsolete buildings and plants and mills, the technology of fifty and a hundred years ago, always seem to look so much better...
I often get asked, 'Is the book dead?' It hasn't happened yet. It's different than music. Music was always meant to be pure sound - it started out as pure sound and now it's pure sound again. But books started out as things. Words on paper began as w...
Working out for me is something I do when I feel like it. But it's really about feeling good and taking care of my body rather than having to fit into any sort of model or anything like that. I try to eat well, and everything I do is really just to m...
The things I do, I do from the heart and out of love and respect for our planet and all living things. And I draw my courage from my love for justice and truth, and I calm my fears by comforting those who are more scared than me. And I try to do my b...
We might like to think of ourselves as autonomous beings who get to decide who we are going to be, but we are likely much more malleable than we think. We are often defined by the structure that keeps us captive. In some ways our desires are so socia...
Heaven is not heaven without Christ. It is better to be in any place with Christ than to be in heaven itself without him. All delicacies without Christ are but as a funeral banquet. Where the master of the feast is away, there is nothing but solemnne...
Because you're exactly like me- you don't want your whole life planned out. You're tired of following Talon's rules, of not having any say in your future. You want to know who Talon really is, but it's even more than that, isn't it? You want to be fr...
