Clary?" he thought. Her voice came through, tinged with alarm. "What is it? What's happened? Did my mom find out I'm gone?" "Not yet," he thought back. "Is Azazel the cat from the Smurfs?" There was a long pause. "That's Azrael, Simon. And no more us...
The main shift, you see, is from placing at the center of our thoughts to putting there. It is-what do you say?-a paradox that the more we can focus our thoughts on the well-being of others, the happier we become. The first one to benefit is oneself....
I thought of the parable of the prodigal son. We had made merry for the beloved child's return too - but what happens when the beloved child doesn't say she's sorry? The parable doesn't talk about that. Jesus figures of you're sorry. Jesus, I thought...
The Christian church is an encyclopaedia of prehistoric cults and conceptions of the most diverse orgiin and that is why it is so capable of proselytising: it always could and it can still go wherever it pleases and it always found and it always find...
How stupid, I thought dreamily, to have ever thought I could give this up. Not just the kissing, although, as Archer’s hands cupped my face, I had to admit that part was pretty awesome. But all of it: joking with him and working beside him. Being w...
Business people - Your business - is your greatest prejudice: it ties you to your locality, to the company you keep, to the inclinations you feel. Diligent in business - but indolent in spirit, content with your inadequacy, and with the cloak of duty...
I think that there are excellent and poor thinking habits just as there are healthy and unhealthy eating habits; and when a man really knows how to think, you cannot necessarily assert that he thinks too much in a strictly negative connotation. Perha...
The natural, proper, fitting shape of the novel might be that of a sack, a bag. A book holds words. Words hold things. They bear meanings. A novel is a medicine bundle, holding things in a particular, powerful relation to one another and to us.
Listen, nitwit, what good will it do you to know whether I am "sincere" or "insincere"? What does this have to do with whether or not my thoughts are right? I can utter a soaring truth "insincerely" and say the stupidest thing "sincerely". Learn to j...
I spent the past two years fearing the worst, that I chose safe arms to hold me when his arms weren’t the arms I longed to be in, nor were they really safe. I thought it’s what I deserved. I thought I couldn’t belong in the arms I wanted to rea...
A poet is not somebody who has great thoughts. That is the menial duty of the philosopher. A poet is somebody who expresses his thoughts, however commonplace they may be, exquisitely. That is the one and only difference between the poet and everybody...
Finally, Slade had the thing he’d never thought he would have. The thing he’d never even thought he wanted. He had the same thing his best friend had with his sister: he had the love of a woman. Not just any woman, but the woman he loved with all...
I do know the sorrow of being ordinary, and that much of our life is spent doing the crazy mental arithmetic of how, at any given moment, we might improve, or at least disguise or present our defects and screw-ups in either more charming or more inti...
Then I saw her smile so close to my eye that there was nothing to see but the smile and the thought came into my head that I’d never been inside a smile before. Who’d have thought being inside a smile would be so ancient and so modern both at onc...
Questions are disturbing, especially those which may threaten our traditions, our institutions, our security. But questions never threaten the living God, who is constantly calling us, and who affirms for us that love is stronger than hate, blessings...
As my son Frankie put it, Humanism has changed the Twenty-third Psalm: They began - I am my shepherd. Then - Sheep are my shepherd. Then - Everything is my shepherd. Finally - Nothing is my shepherd.
The ironic fact is that humanism which began with man's being central eventually had no real meaning for people. On the other hand, if one begins with the Bible's position that man is created by God and in the image of God, there is a basis for that ...
The heroes of faith in Hebrews 11 ... obeyed by faith ... obedience is the pathway to holiness ... no one will become holy apart from a life of faith. Faith enables us to claim the promises of God, but it also enables us to obey the commands of God.
As a child, she’d always had what she imagined were fascinating thoughts, but didn’t ever say them. Once, as a little girl, at recess, she thought that if she ran very fast at a pole and then caught it and swung quickly around, part of her would ...
I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes.
I've spent most of my life and most of my friendships holding my breath and hoping that when people get close enough they won't leave, and fearing that it's a matter of time before they figure me out and go.
