Most of the church landscape in my lifetime has been heavily invested in trying to do something for Jerry or Sherri or some other icon of unchurchness. The problem is that they have been only about themselves from the moment they could wail for their...
I am not a witch! I am a healer,” she cried. “There is a world of difference between the two." “Call yourself whatever you will, Branwyn. Your powers do not scare me. In truth, I sought you out a-purpose in the hopes you would heal me from the ...
She was beautiful, only hers was the dark beauty of night, just as Sherry's was the bright beauty of daytime. Her hair was raven-black, ending in a sort of widow's peak low on her forehead, and her face and arms were alabaster- white. Her gown was a ...
I think people who don't know the woods very well sometimes imagine it as a kind of undifferentiated mass of greenery, an endless continuation of the wall of trees they see lining the road. And I think they wonder how it could hold anyone's interest ...
Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it. Where is there a place for you to be? No place. Nothing outside you can give you any place," he said. "You...
Leave!’ Hazel Motes cried. ‘Go ahead and leave! The truth don’t matter to you. Listen,’ he said, pointing his finger at the rest of them, ‘the truth don’t matter to you. If Jesus had redeemed you, what difference would it make to you? You...
The book argues that even though many cases have been held up as classic examples of modern American “witch hunts,” none of them fits that description. McMartin certainly comes close. But a careful examination of the evidence presented at trial d...
I took ten days off and by 11 o’clock on the first morning I had drunk fourteen cups of coffee, read all the newspapers and the Guardian and then… and then what? By lunchtime I was so bored that I decided to hang a few pictures. So I found a hamm...
Anyhow, I took every stitch of clothing off and got out of bed. And I got down on my knees on the floor in the white moonlight. The heat was off and the room must have been cold, but I didn’t feel cold. There was some kind of special something in t...
You know where I’m going to be, and you’ll know where I’ve been every step of my way to get there. You’ve made a hobby out of taking things away from me… a lot of them I never even knew to miss, but I know now. I know what you just took, an...
In Paris the cashiers sit rather than stand. They run your goods over a scanner, tally up the price, and then ask you for exact change. The story they give is that there aren't enough euros to go around. "The entire EU is short on coins." And I say, ...
She asked another question: "What does it matter if the rhinos die out? Is it really important that they are saved?" This would normally have riled me... but I had come to think of her as Dr. Spock from Star Trek - an emotionless, purely logical crea...
NO. No no no. I don't want to screw you. I just love you. When did who you want to screw become the whole game? Since when is the person you want to screw the only person you get to love? It's so stupid, Tiny! I mean, Jesus, who even gives a fuck abo...
Content is not mere facts, drummed into tender little minds under the relentless pounding of rote learning. Content--even the date of the Quebec Act, Confederation, or the Battle of Vimy Ridge, or the name of the first prime minister-- is cultural ca...
My point is, or should be, simple: history happened. The object is not to undo it, distort it, or to make it fit our present political attitudes. The object of history, which each generation properly interprets anew, is to understand what happened an...
In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference. We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking. I should not talk so muc...
The symptoms of abuse are there, and the woman usually sees them: the escalating frequency of put-downs. Early generosity turning more and more to selfishness. Verbal explosions when he is irritated or when he doesn’t get his way. Her grievances co...
When a man’s face contorts in bitterness and hatred, he looks a little insane. When his mood changes from elated to assaultive in the time it takes to turn around, his mental stability seems open to question. When he accuses his partner of plotting...
Tiffany got up early and lit the fires. When her mother came down, she was scrubbing the kitchen floor, very hard. “Er…aren’t you supposed to do that sort of thing by magic, dear?” said her mother, who’d never really got the hang of what wi...
The path of the norm is the path of least resistance; it is the route we take when we're on auto-pilot and don't even realize we're following a course of action that we haven't consciously chosen. Most people who eat meat have no idea that they're be...
