Let’s face it: suffering discredits goodness. I’m agnostic in practice though faith-based in theory. I used to pray but now know he’ll do what he darn well pleases when he darn well pleases. Will he listen? Maybe. We have a book that says so, b...
Percy pulled Annabeth close and kissed her... long enough for it to get really awkward for Piper, though she said nothing. She thought about the old rule of Aphrodite's cabin: that to be recognized as a daughter of the love goddess, you had to break ...
I’ve never needed a bodyguard, Evan.” His hands stilled on the glasses. “Maybe that isn’t such a bad idea now.” “It’s a terrible idea. I would never want anyone watching every move I make. It’s unnerving. There are fresh lemons in the...
Love is a source of anxiety until it is source of boredom; only friendship feeds the spirit. Love raises great expectations in us that it never satisfies; the hopes based on friendship are milder and in the present, and they exist only because they'v...
The girl with dark hair was coming towards them across the field. With what seemed a single movement she tore off her clothes and flung them disdainfully aside. Her body was white and smooth, but it aroused no desire in him, indeed he barely looked a...
He had been haunted his whole life by a mild case of claustrophobia—the vestige of a childhood incident he had never quite overcome. Langdon’s aversion to closed spaces was by no means debilitating, but it had always frustrated him. It manifested...
A purposeless virtue is a contradiction in terms. Virtue, like harmony, cannot exist alone; a virtue must lead to harmony between one creature and another. To be good for nothing is just that. If a virtue has been thought a virtue long enough, it mus...
Paul saith, 'Not of works, lest any man should boast.' Now, faith excludes all boasting. The hand which receives charity does not say, 'I am to be thanked for accepting the gift'; that would be absurd. When the hand conveys bread to the mouth it does...
The days were brief and attenuated and the season appeared to be fixed - neither summer nor winter, spring nor fall. A thermal haze of inexpressible sweetness, though bearing tiny bits of grit or mica, had eased into the Valley from the industrial re...
School did give me one of the greatest gifts of my life, though. I learned how to read, and for that I remain thankful. I would have died otherwise. As soon as I was able, I read, alone. Under the covers with a flashlight or in my corner of the attic...
We have to think of a question that we wouldn't otherwise want to answer.' He stood over the pot, looking down at the leaves. 'Something like, Who do you fancy?' 'That might work,' I said, even though it was the last question I wanted to answer. But ...
I'm glad being shipwrecked appeals to you." "Captain Walken made a point of avoiding that word." "Well, he was trying to keep everyone jolly, wasn't he. It's no good having everyone running around screaming and eating each other." "I wouldn't run aro...
That was magic, sweetest.” The witch flexed her fingers, wriggled them in front of her. “Did she think it a wave of the hands? A slip of the tongue?” A kiss upon her skin. She could see the woman reaching out and taking her in hand, kissing eac...
The ethical aspect of the Law of Thelema is simple enough theoretically. "Do what thou wilt" does not mean "do what you please"; though this degree of emancipation is implied, that we can no longer say that any given course of action is "wrong". Ever...
Don't let Ron see what's on those Slytherin's badges," she whispered urgently. Harry looked questioningly at her, but she shook her head warningly; Ron had just ambled over to them, looking lost and desparate. "Good luck, Ron," said Hermione, standin...
There was no sense to life, to the structure of things. D.H. Lawrence had known that. You needed love, but not the kind of love most people used and were used up by. Old D.H. had known something. His buddy Huxley was just an intellectual fidget, but ...
In itself a wall on which a panoramic view of a non-existent world is drawn does not change. But for a great deal of money you can buy a view from the window with a painted sun, a sky-blue bay and a calm evening. Unfortunately the author of this frag...
It is good for us to have trials and troubles at times, for they often remind us that we are on probation and ought not to hope in any worldly thing. It is good for us sometimes to suffer contradiction, to be misjudged by men even though we do well a...
The mind of Caesar. It is the reverse of most men's. It rejoices in committing itself. To us arrive each day a score of challenges; we must say yes or no to decisions that will set off chains of consequences. Some of us deliberate; some of us refuse ...
The story of how He created the world aroused their interests immediately, even though they received no answer to the question of why He had to do it; but they found it difficult to understand sin, or the manner of its entry into the world, for it wa...
The lesson I have to teach is this: Leave all creative energies uninhibited. Merely organize society to act in harmony with this lesson. Let society's legal apparatus remove all obstacles the best it can. Permit these creative know-hows freely to flo...
