Ugly and ungainly. The least dependable creature you ever met. Just when you think you understand her, she changes. If only I had a son," he said bitterly. Over and over he disparaged her, and George would have thought that Beatrice would be so used ...
There are people, she once wrote, who think that we cannot rule ourselves because the few times we tried, we failed, as if all the others who rule themselves today got it right the first time. It is like telling a crawling baby who tries to walk, and...
There is also a third kind of madness, which is possession by the Muses, enters into a delicate and virgin soul, and there inspiring frenzy, awakens lyric....But he, who, not being inspired and having no touch of madness in his soul, comes to the doo...
Love is made up of three unconditional properties in equal measure: 1. Acceptance 2. Understanding 3. Appreciation Remove any one of the three and the triangle falls apart. Which, by the way, is something highly inadvisable. Think about it — do you...
SUN, MOON, AND STARRY SKY Early summer evenings, when the first stars come out, the warm glow of sunset still stains the rim of the western sky. Sometimes, the moon is also visible, a pale white slice, while the sun tarries. Just think -- all the cel...
No one will say it to my face, but it’s so obvious they think I actually murdered Gavin. As if I would actually want to hurt the guy I was in love with. Still, I see it in their eyes, the way they avoid crossing my path as if I’ll snap and go aft...
The business of being happy requires making a conscious choice. People think being happy will just happen to them someday, if only they do this or that right. But it doesn't - you have to choose it. You choose happiness, you don't wait for it to choo...
It's funny: one starts off thinking one is shrinkingly sensitive & intelligent & always one down & all the rest of it: then at thirty one finds one is a great clumping brute, incapable of appreciating anything finer than a kiss or a kick, roaring our...
Only after Mom went missing did you realize that her stories were piled inside you, in endless stacks. Mom's everyday life used to go on in a repeating loop, without a break. Her everyday words, which you didn't think deeply about and sometimes dismi...
Point being that you don't have to get too worked up about us, dear educated minds. You don't have to think of us as real girls, real flesh and blood, real pain, real injustice. That might be too upsetting. Just discard the sordid part. Consider us p...
The farm work they hated was the only work they knew. Often, even the basic skills of plumbing or electricity or mechanical work were mysteries to them – as were the job discipline and the subtleties that children raised in the industrial world lea...
Dance comes naturally to us when we're little but fades when we get older. Too many people let the stresses of life get them wound up. I think there's something to be said for cutting loose and having a good time. And hey, people even danced in Bible...
My own idea, for what it is worth, is that all sadness which is not either arising from the repentance of a concrete sin and hastening towards concrete amendment or restitution, or else arising from pity and hastening to active assistance, is simply ...
I didn't know I had it in me. There's more to all of us than we realize. Life is so much bigger, grander, higher, and wider than we allow ourselves to think. We're capable of so much more than we allow ourselves to believe.
What do you think it means if someone has a tattoo of Thanatos’s symbol?” “Nothing probably, since a lot of us have tattoos of various symbols.” “You don’t.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted them. His eyes turned from gra...
So you believe in fate,” I say. Dr. Mann pauses thoughtfully before answering. “I believe each of us was uniquely created for a specific purpose designed by the Creator, and that, because of that, there are certain things in our lives that we are...
I think He made one law of that kind in order that there might be obedience. In all these other matters what you call obeying Him is but doing what seems good in your eyes also. Is love content with that? You do them, indeed, because they are His wil...
Our one employee came warily out of the back. He was always skittish with me, and if Lizzy wasn't around, h made a point of keeping his distance. I think he was expecting me to make a pass at him. He was seventeen, had stringy black hair,bad skin, an...
I know what you're thinking. ‘How the hell does this broke ass piece of trailer trash know words like caveat,’ right? Well guess what? I've read every single book on the New York Times list of 'Top 100 Literary Classics,' not to mention every Jan...
You are putting yourself in serious danger...' I think that I preferred to put myself in serious danger rather than confront my shame. My shame at not having become someone, the shame of not having made my parents proud after all the sacrifices they ...
This probably isn’t something you’re supposed to say at a moment like this, but I think the moon is seriously overrated.” A moment like what? I bite my cheeks, taming the grin that threatens to take over my face. “And the stars?” I ask, onc...
