Religion used to be the opium of the people. To those suffering humiliation, pain, illness, and serfdom, religion promised the reward of an after life. But now, we are witnessing a transformation, a true opium of the people is the belief in nothingne...
Man often accords the sexual urge a merely biological significance and does not fully realize its true, existential significance - its link with existence. It is this link with the very existence of man and of the species Homo that gives the sexual u...
The true men of action in our time those who transform the world are not the politicians and statesmen but the scientists. Unfortunately poetry cannot celebrate them because their deeds are concerned with things, not persons, and are therefore speech...
I can fly around the world in one night. I can wink and go up a chimney in a split second. I can be in 500 shopping malls on the same weekend. I can even fit enough gifts for the entire world into one tiny sleigh pulled by eight tiny reindeer, but I ...
I listen to people talking sometimes, that great river that is language, with all its undercurrents of grammar and nuance, and I wonder how we all learn so quickly to speak it, given that we begin when we are barely old enough to stand upright. I hav...
There were, however, a few exceptions. One was Norma Dodsworth, the poet, who had not unpleasantly drunk but had been sensible enough to pass out before any violent action proved necessary. He had been deposited, not very gently, on the lawn, where i...
It was Eric's voice not Simon's, on the recorded message. “Ladies, ladies ” he said. Though it was the millionth time she’d heard the recording, Clary couldn't help rolling her eyes. “If you've reached this message that means our boy Simon is...
I made an attempt to reach him in his grief. I said, "I've had this pain. To tell you it will go away would be a lie. It will never go away. But, if you live long enough, it will cease to torture and will instead favor you. As we rely on the bitterne...
But Hood was not yet done with her. He swung her up again, spun and once more hammered her onto the stone. 'I have had,' the Jaghut roared, and into the air she went again, and down once more, 'enough' - with a sob the crushed, broken body was yanked...
These illustrations suggest four general maxims[...]. The first is: remember that your motives are not always as altruistic as they seem to yourself. The second is: don't over-estimate your own merits. The third is: don't expect others to take as muc...
Then, almost as an afterthought, she turned and locked the bathroom door. If he thought he was going to seduce her, make her stupid enough to believe his lies by getting her into bed, he'd better think again. She stepped into the water. Besides, wome...
There are different kinds of anger. There is the kind that flares bright, like a fire devouring dry wood – an anger that dies as quickly as it ignites. There is the kind that takes its time to rise, but leaves devastation in its wake when it does. ...
He had never thought in his wildest imagination of marriage as an option for him. Never believed there was a woman out there that would make him sign up for that particular brand of madness. And, in the abstract at least, it still sounded like madnes...
If we are going to start calling industrial corn sustainable, then we might as well say that petroleum is a renewable resource if you're willing to wait long enough.
The first real memory I have, is one of the first times I was old enough to remember being at your house. We must have been about three, maybe four. I came and sat down beside you while you were playing and it’s like, even then, you knew I wasn’t...
The look on his face told her what had happened and that hurt burrowed deeper than anything she'd ever felt, deep enough to change from the thing she felt to the thing she was. Love, she learned, could reduce its recipient to an essential thing, as i...
When you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach...
Luck in all its moods had to be loved and not feared Bond saw luck as a woman, to be softly wooed or brutally ravaged, never pandered to or pursued. But he was honest enough to admit that he had never yet been made to suffer by cards or by women. One...
If you were looking aside and mentally adding up the hours until the execution of a young killer, all that registered was something dark flashing by. But if you happened to be gazing directly at the window in question and you happened as well to be f...
A man's strength was supposed to be against the outside world: to fight it back from himself and those he took under his protection: his wife, his children, and for a man strong enough, more people still, people like his employees. To turn it inward,...
No matter how many years passed or how much responsibility each assumed, they still managed to bicker like bitchy teenagers on a regular basis. In some way, though, each found it comforting; it reminded them how close they really were: Acquaintances ...
