A human doesn't have a heart like mine. The human heart is a line, whereas my own is a circle, and I have the endless ability to be in the right place at the right time. The consequence of this is that I'm always finding humans at their best and wors...
As she turned left to the gateway, it occurred to her that swimming was only one of a very large number of things she had no idea what to do. Peter had been right to object to her ignorance. "It's not that I'm lazy," she explained to Waif as they arr...
In solitude, struggles occur that no one else knows about. Inner battles are fought here that seldom become fodder for sermons or illustrations for books. God, who probes our deepest thoughts during protracted segments of solitude, opens our eyes to ...
It is strange, is it not, how an accident of a millimeter here, a millimeter there, makes one face so important. Think about it Elliot, She has two eyes, a nose, a mouth, just like everyone else. It,s all in tiny degrees of placement, such small area...
The world's a hard place, Danny. It don't care. It don't hate you and me, but it don't love us, either. Terrible things happen in the world, and they're things no one can explain. Good people die in bad, painful ways and leave the folks that love the...
Think of the most discouraging thing that you are currently carrying or the biggest project you can’t seem to tackle. Forget about how it happened, forget about how you got there, just look at the clock, and before that number changes, do one littl...
Maybe that’s why I get frustrated sometimes, because there’s no one to blame for how our lives have turned out. I wouldn’t change any of the things I’ve done, but at the same time I wish things were different than they are. I have no regrets,...
I use my understanding of jiu jitsu as a road map to learn other activities. I look for the similarities between the two, and use jiu jitsu as an allegory for whatever my new practice may be. I truly believe once you have learned one thing, you have ...
I train jiu jitsu because I love jiu jitsu. But I also train knowing that my practice in this art will allow me better practice in any art. If you have learned one thing, you have learned all things, because you have learned how to learn. I can think...
We are the ones who take this thing called music and line it up with this thing called time. We are the ticking, we are the pulsing, we are underneath every part of this moment. And by making the moment our own, we are rendering it timeless. There is...
She needs you, Dad," Julia says. "She has unfinished business in this world." "What is the matter with you?" Charlie asks his daughter. "Any sane person would have told me to go to the doctor. I'm seeing a headless apparition every day. Maybe my medi...
Rejecting joy to stand in solidarity with the suffering doesn't rescue the suffering the converse does. The brave who focus and all things good and all things beautiful to give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the cha...
Everything that comes together falls apart. Everything. The chair I’m sitting on. It was built, and so it will fall apart. I’m gonna fall apart, probably before this chair. And you’re gonna fall apart. The cells and organs and systems that make...
I knew that coming from a family with an unhealthy social origins, things would be harder for me. Nonetheless, in my heart, hope never died. However, over time, I had learned that trying never died either. Trying was one thing I always had to do more...
I believe that at the center of the universe there dwells a loving spirit who longs for all that’s best in all of creation, a spirit who knows the great potential of each planet as well as each person, and little by little will love us into being m...
If someone offered the chance to be happy for the rest of your life, everyone in the room will bid, but what they don't know that the secret is nothing, they all have the power already with them. One of the most bizarre quirks of human beings is that...
Well, right now I'm dead. But when I am, it's like...I don't know, I guess it's like being inside a book that nobody's reading. [...] An old one. It's up on a library shelf, so you're safe and everything, but the book hasn't been checked out for a lo...
They did not submit to the obvious alternative, which was simply to close the eyes and fall. So easy, really. Go limp and tumble to the ground and let the muscles unwind and not speak and not budge until your buddies picked you up and lifted you into...
The thing about a mom is that she's always there. She's the one who rubs your back when you have the flu, who manages to notice you have no clean underwear and does your wash for you, who stocks the refrigerator with all the foods you love without ha...
I narrowed my eyes. Jean stayed awfully well informed about prete politics, and often told me things the Elders hadn't yet learned. I suspected this might be one of those things. "How do you know all this?" He shrugged. "A wise man watches as if her ...
All terrible things are more terrible if they give us no chance of retrieving a blunder—either no chance at all, or only one that depends on our enemies and not ourselves. Those things are also worse which we cannot, or cannot easily, help. Speakin...
