It is hope--with regard to our careers, our love lives, our children, our politicians, and our planet--that is primarily to blame for angering and embittering us. The incompatibility between the grandeur of our aspirations and the mean reality of our...
Romanticism embodied "a new and restless spirit, seeking violently to burst through old and cramping forms, a nervous preoccupation with perpetually changing inner states of consciousness, a longing for the unbounded and the indefinable, for perpetua...
Man's desire for the approval of his fellows is so strong, his dread of their censure so violent, that he himself has brought his enemy (conscience) within his gates; and it keeps watch over him, vigilant always in the interests of its master to crus...
I think the people from Mississippi ought to come to Chicago to learn how to hate." Martin Luther King, Jr. after the violent reception he received in Chicago in 1966.
[A]nd the wizened youth trembles more and more violently, wrinkles his nose and then pounces on the story. But only I know the story, the real story. And it is simple and cruel and true and it should make us laugh, it should make us die laughing. But...
In the immediate vicinity, there might well be stability and peace. In the garden, a breeze may be swaying the branches of the plum tree and dust may slowly be gathering on the bookshelves in the living room. But we are aware that such serenity does ...
No one can violently attack something without taking it seriously in some way. No one attacks belief in Zeus anymore. No one gets emotional over the Flat Earth Society. Yet Christianity calls forth the deepest emotions -- even and especially in the o...
But I looked out at the waves far below the bluff. They looked violent, erupting against the cliff. I watched them rising - up, up, higher, higher - then falling, crashing, swirling into chaos, passing away. I breathed deeply. I tried to breathe spac...
I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I've lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed,...
While the popular understanding of anarchism is of a violent, anti-State movement, anarchism is a much more subtle and nuanced tradition then a simple opposition to government power. Anarchists oppose the idea that power and domination are necessary ...
[He] went on to say that during all those years he had done nothing at all, that all he had felt had been a need to live, to live actively, violently, noisily, a need to sing, to make music, to roam the woods, to drink a little too much and get invol...
We all know whose side you're on," marshall says, picking him up and launching him toward the window. The explosive sound of glass shattering fills the room. The walls tremble from the sheer heft of his violent exit. "What the hell?" Barron rushes in...
Success also requires the courage to risk disapproval. Most independent thought, new ideas, or endeavors beyond the common measure are greeted with disapproval, and ranging from skepticism and ridicule to violent outrage. To persevere in anything exc...
Rigel, Betelgeuse, and Orion. There was no finer church, no finer choir, than the stars speaking in silence to the many consumptives silently condemned, a legion upon the dark rooftops. The wind came down from the north like a runner in lacrosse, vio...
Outside the door, a teller with a blue rosette chomps on an apple and asks for my number. She smiles a thank you and reveals a ghastly, gaping tunnel of masticated apple, edge with violent mauve lipstick seemingly applied by Bette Davis in What Ever ...
But people like the doll guy who sells women and the dog guy who buys women, and other guys who, say, rape women, or maybe don’t go as far as violent rape but treat women like objects instead of people—sure, there’s a difference in the level of...
I am not expecting anyone to feel sorry for me, but when friends ask how it feels to be a debut novelist who has also been long listed for the Man Booker prize, I have to admit that my response has confused me. I am so overwhelmed, so delighted, so h...
Good evening, gentlemen!' said the vampire. 'Please pay attention. I am a vampire, which is to say, I am a bundle of repressed instincts held together with spit and coffee. It would be wrong to say that violent, tearing carnage does not come easily t...
Isn't it awkward how some people say that they are 'real' because they are violently cold hearted and always engaging in all kinds of negative behaviors? But if you ask me, I would tell you that a 'real person' is someone who treats others the same w...
I wonder if you know yet that you’ll leave me. That you are a child playing with matches and I have a paper body. You will meet a girl with a softer voice and stronger arms and she will not have violent secrets or an affection for red wine or eyes ...
I never had a desire to hurt anybody. I have at certain times had violent urges, but I don't think I ever have hurt anybody. Tried to a couple times, but I don't think I have. Yeah, guess I have. In high school. I was dirty then. Kick 'em. I might no...
