I will insist you be man enough to take it. I won’t have you making light of my feelings, or making light of yourself—as if you’re not worthy of them. Because you are worthy, Colin. You’re a generous, good-hearted person, and you deserve to b...
That wasn't enough. They weren't enough. Nor, she soon realized, was Will, though by every rational measure he ought to have been. ... He became ardent, spoke of love, hinted at marriage. She stilled his roving hands and deflected his near-proposals....
Everyone, no matter what kind of job he or she has, fantasizes about freaking out at work. How many corporate drones, stuck in a boring staff meeting, have had the sudden urge to jump on top of the conference table and start screaming obscenities? St...
Do the things that interest you and do them with all your heart. Don't be concerned about whether people are watching you or criticizing you. The chances are that they aren't paying any attention to you. It's your attention to yourself that is so stu...
What to Accept The fact of mountains. The actuality Of any stone — by kicking, if necessary. The need to ignore stupid people, While restraining one's natural impulse To murder them. The change from your dollar, Be it no more than a penny, For with...
The aspirant would do well to avoid those ‘spiritual teachers’ who delight in pointing out the evils of the world. These are immature egos attempting to discard their own negativities by projecting them onto others. The true yogi is one who is li...
I learned to find equal meaning in the repeated rituals of domestic life. Setting the table. Lighting the candles. Building the fire. Cooking. All those soufflés, all that crème caramel, all those daubes and albóndigas and gumbos. Clean sheets, st...
Committing suicide essentially said to friends and loved ones and the world at large that you were the only thing that mattered, that your problems were hopeless that you deserved to escape from them and to hell with everyone else. Suicide was nothin...
After you are here, I will try not to become one of those parents who brag incessantly about their children, who force them to recite the alphabet backward or sing the Lord's Prayer in German to horrified dinner guests. One of those parents who tell ...
Can I have a motorcycle when I get old enough?" "If you take care of it." "What do you have to do?" "Lot's of things. You've been watching me." "Will you show me all of them?" "Sure." "Is it hard?" "Not if you have the right attitudes. It's having th...
There were adventure stories supplied with cloths for mopping your brow, thrillers containing pressed leaves of soothing valerian to be sniffed when the suspense became too great, and books with stout locks sealed by the Atlantean censorship authorit...
I recognized the handwriting, and my heart gave a skip; when I opened it I got a turn, for it began, 'To my beloved Hector,' and I thought, by God she's cheating on me, and has sent me the wrong letter by mistake. But in the second line was a referen...
...it pointed to an alternative approach, a ‘negative path’ to happiness, that entailed taking a radically different stance towards those things that most of us spend our lives trying to avoid. It involved learning to enjoy uncertainty, embracing...
Reluctantly, I pulled out my necklace and showed it to them. Samuel frowned. The little figure was stylized; I suppose he couldn't tell what it was at first. "A dog?" asked Zee, staring at my necklace. "A lamb," I said defensively, tucking it safely ...
I believe in making my potential models comfortable,’ he explained when she shot a surprised look at him. ‘I’m considerate, unlike some artists who bend their sitters into difficult positions and expect them to stay there for hours. My demands ...
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends. The lunatic, the lover and the poet Are of imagination all compact: One sees more devils than vast hell can hold, That is, the...
The Defiler will not have you, Felicity. I have claimed you for myself." The rumble of those words, soft and dark, sent shivers racing through her. Her imagination supplied all sorts of images of ways she could be claimed by him, and none of them had...
How clear, how lovely bright, How beautiful to sight Those beams of morning play; How heaven laughs out with glee Where, like a bird set free, Up from the eastern sea Soars the delightful day. To-day I shall be strong, No more shall yield to wrong, S...
As much as he loathed himself for it, he couldn't stop thinking about Abigail. If he hadn't met her, he might be married to someone else. Some nice woman who didn't throw dishes at him. He'd be asleep right now, lying on his side with her warm body s...
For a while parents seemed to forget that their responsibility as parents did not cease when the child turned on the radio; rather it increases. In the August, 1938, issue of , Mary Linton has this to say to the parent who is blaming everyone but him...
HOW ANGELS SLEEP. Unsoundly. They toss and turn, trying to understand the mystery of the living. They know so little about what it's like to fill a new prescription for glasses and suddenly see the world again, with a mixture of disappointment and gr...
