Here’s a 165-year old but still fitting comment on public officials who are so sure they’re right that they’ll drive over a cliff rather than compromise: “Always to be right, always to trample forward, and never to doubt – are not these the...
We humans have a questionable track record in our dealings with the environment. Recent studies show that complete restoration of Florida’s Everglades could take approximately 30 years and 7.8 billion dollars. There’s a lot of work to be done–b...
Over the years Breece had lectured that truth was liquid. That it evaporated in the heat of passion, froze in the cold of fear, and bent itself around virginous, unpurposeful fibs. It could churn and pull you under, drown you in itself, or let you ri...
Let's get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelat...
This tree, though, had not been fed on, so it was apparent that the culprit was a bull (elephant) who was filled with testosterone but no outlet for it, so he pushed over trees. It's a great release for a bull and a way of showing his strength after ...
Even bullying was important to Wonder Woman, and in Sensation Comics #23 she stopped a gang who were picking on a young boy, showed the head bully the error of his ways and learned about his home situation, spoke to his father about his abusive tende...
My dear sister, you can’t escape God, and you can’t escape your skeletons in the closet. They will always be there until you take them out from behind those dusty old moth-eaten coats. Your exterior facade of ‘everything is alright’ only work...
Negotiations with Iran, especially, will not be easy under any circumstances, but I suspect that they might be somewhat less difficult if the nuclear-weapon states could show that their requests are part of a broader effort to lead the world, includi...
Typical artist,' said Granny. 'He just painted the showy stuff in the front... And what about these cherubs? We're not going to get them too, are we? I don't like to see little babies flying through the air.' 'They turn up in a lot of old paintings,'...
He’d only ever seen a gun once, a smaller one on the hip of that old deputy, a gun he’d always figured was more for show. He stuffed a fistful of deadly rounds in his pocket, thinking how each one could end an individual life, and understanding w...
People you've known, seemingly forever, may claim to have love for you, but when gossip's tainted tongue whips you - they don't show enough love to weigh your history against false witness. Be that as it may, press forward as the dust settles. Your p...
The congregation at my church felt that our pastor was spending our tithing poorly. So I took it upon myself to divert the collection money to an offshore bank account of mine, while I sipped martinis on the shore with bikini-clad women. By removing ...
The best way to choose the wrong door, or never even open the door, is to let fear run the show. When you reflect on any big-ticket decision you have made on the basis of fear and anxiety, you can almost guarantee you made the wrong decision.
The year showed me beyond a doubt that everyone practices cafeteria religion... But the important lesson was this: there's nothing wrong with choosing. Cafeterias aren't bad per se... the key is in choosing the right dishes. You need to pick the nurt...
He spent the next hours watching her sleep, taking in every detail of her face, of her body. The way the soft glow of the bedside lamp cast shadows on her cheeks. The way her chest rose and fell with each breath. And when the first light of dawn fina...
You speak in ignorant disdain of the foremost nation of the world," Yongxing said, growing angry himself, "like all your country-men, who show no respect for that which is superior, and insult our customs." "For which I might consider myself as owing...
Are you sure that being like everybody else will make you happy?" "I don't know any other way." "Let me show you." And then we're kissing. Or at least, I think we're kissing—I've only seen it done a couple of times, quick closed-mouth pecks at wedd...
How did you hear about that?' 'Are you kidding me? So far, I had that runt Kyle-' 'I hate him. I hate all vamps. That complete toad, Michael-' '-tell me you were pregnant by a vamp-' 'kidnnaped me and-Kyle said WHAT?' 'and then a member of the Domi s...
Some attribute had departed from her, the permanence of which had been essential to keep her a woman. Such is frequently the fate, and such the stern development, of the feminine character and person, when the woman has encountered, and lived through...
I was sufficiently recovered from my nervous condition – or else the booze was beginning to work – to be able to discuss with Rudi the merits of checked or striped trousers, which had been the great debate among the London nobs that year. I was a...
The soul grows into lovely habits as easily as into ugly ones, and the moment a life begins to blossom into beautiful words and deeds, that moment a new standard of conduct is established, and your eager neighbors look to you for a continuous manifes...
