Her mind, shaped so long before my own, was for me the equivalent of what had been offered me by the behaviour of the girls of the little gang along the sea-shore. Mme de Guermantes offered me, tamed and subdued by good manners, by respect for intell...
Development means a capacity for self-sustaining growth. It means that an economy must register advances which in turn will promote further progress. The loss of industry and skill in Africa was extremely small, if we measure it from the viewpoint of...
Miss McClure...” he had been talking while her mind drifted off. She brought her gaze back to his face, trying to focus on the flinty stare and thin line of his lips. “Sorry, I was distracted. And can’t you call me Bryn?” “I’ll try, but g...
Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes som...
Cocky little king. You assume you're the only one that gives me satisfaction?" His smile widens as he lifts one of my arms and kisses the sensitive skin of my wrist. "If there is something in this world that can please you more than me," he says, his...
It was Stevenson, I think, who most notably that there are some places that simply demand a story should be told of them. ... After all, perhaps Stevenson had only half of the matter. It is true there are places which stir the mind to think that a st...
For Equilibrium, a Blessing: Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore, May the relief of laughter rinse through your soul. As the wind loves to call things to dance, May your gravity by lightened by grace. Like the dignity of moonlight restoring ...
Freedom is the possibility of isolation. You are free if you can withdraw from people, not having to seek them out for the sake of money, company, love, glory or curiosity, none of which can thrive in silence and solitude. If you can't live alone, yo...
Knowledge drifts in and out of my mind", said Lestat with a little look of honest distress and a shake of his head. "I devour it and then I lose it and sometimes I can't reach for any knowledge that I ought to possess. I feel desolate, but then knowl...
If I was gay, I wouldn't need an asterisk beside my name. I could stop worrying if the girl I like will bounce when she finds out I also like dick. I could have a coming-out party without people thinking I just want attention. I wouldn't have to expl...
You are now listening to me; you are not making an effort to pay attention, you are just listening; and if there is truth in what you hear, you will find remarkable change taking place in you – a change that is not premeditated or wished for, a tra...
If you obsess over whether you are making the right decision, you are basically assuming that the universe will reward you for one thing and punish you for another. The universe has no fixed agenda. Once you make any decision, it works around that de...
So why hadn’t he confronted me? Why hadn’t he torn through my lies and forced me to own up that I’d caught him in a Binding? It wasn’t like he could just brush this off. And that smile before he left, as if he’d been pulling my leg to see m...
Inside the room there sat a rocker, which she sat on, and which had rocked her while she sipped the beer, because in spite of herself she had become so giddy to have so quickly relieved her heart that she allowed herself to lean backwards while in th...
[W]e, being who and what we are, cannot know unless we are taught by that which is other than we, and that means by the Spirit of God, albeit in diverse mediations. Though nature is relatively passive under our enquiry… it remains true that knowled...
To muse for long unwearied hours with my attention riveted to some frivolous device upon the margin, or in the typography of a book — to become absorbed for the better part of a summer's day in a quaint shadow falling aslant upon the tapestry, or u...
In our day, there are stresses and fractures of the human-animal bond, and some forces at work would sever it once and for all. They pull us in the wrong direction and away from the decent and honorable code that makes us care for creatures who are e...
From the study of the development of human intelligence, in all directions, and through all times, the discovery arises of a great fundamental law, to which it is necessarily subject, and which has a solid foundation of proof, both in the facts of ou...
It is because of the Biblical curse on man's search for knowledge, which has so paralyzed his mind during the past ages, and its detrimental effect upon progress, that makes the Bible the most wicked, the most detestable, the most pernicious, and the...
Mother, just like the last fifty-five thousand times you’ve mentioned it, I have no intention of getting married and having a family. You’re just going to have to content yourself with the grandchildren you already have.” ... ... His mother nar...
As if reading his mind, Lily huffed. “You’re as predictable as the spring rains, son of mine, and as boring as drying paint. Unless there’s an emergency, you’re home every night by seven, you eat dinner go for a run, watch exactly one hour of...
