The deep secret of the brain is that not only the spinal cord but the entire central nervous system works this way: internally generated activity is modulated by sensory input. In this view, the difference between being awake and being asleep is mere...
I am—yet what I am none cares or knows; My friends forsake me like a memory lost: I am the self-consumer of my woes— They rise and vanish in oblivious host, Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes And yet I am, and live—like vapours to...
Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still, Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will! Where shall we dine? O me! What fray was here? Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all. Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love. Why, then, O bra...
Silence cleared her throat, fearful her voice would come out a croak. “Is she asleep?” He blinked as if he, too, were waking from a dream, and glanced down at Mary Darling. “Aye, I’m a-thinkin’ she is—she’s stopped fussin’ at me.” S...
Inconstancy of every second punishes me. The wind, the rain, the clouds, the days, I try to grasp the hours but they banish me, And I remain in the vortex of incongruity. The lone coyote shrieks, Startling my soul into wakefulness. The Cacti bloom an...
...infirmity alone makes us take notice and learn, and enables us to analyse mechanisms of which otherwise we should know nothing. A man who falls straight into bed night after night, and ceases to live until the moment when he wakes and rises, will ...
I shall never forget how I was roused one night by the groans of a fellow prisoner, who threw himself about in his sleep, obviously having a horrible nightmare. Since I had always been especially sorry for people who suffered from fearful dreams or d...
What a luxury a cat is, the moments of shocking and startling pleasure in a day, the feel of the beast, the soft sleekness under your palm, the warmth when you wake on a cold night, the grace and charm even in a quite ordinary workaday puss. Cat walk...
When you read a manuscript that has been damaged by water, fire, light or just the passing of the years, your eye needs to study not just the shape of the letters but other marks of production. The speed of the pen. The pressure of the hand on the pa...
There had come to him one of those moments of quiet despair that lie in wait for even the happiest. Stealthy-footed they leap upon us, as we walk along the street, as we sit at evening with fruit and wine upon the table and laughter on our lips, as w...
It's a great paradox and a great injustice that writers write because we fear death and want to leave something indestructable in our wake, and at the same time, are drawn to things that kill: whiskey and cigarette, unprotected sex and deep fried bur...
A BOAT beneath a sunny sky, Lingering onward dreamily In an evening of July — Children three that nestle near, Eager eye and willing ear, Pleased a simple tale to hear — Long has paled that sunny sky: Echoes fade and memories die: Autumn frosts h...
If T. S. Eliot had stayed in St Louis, he would never have held that April was the cruelest month. Well, unless he was a Browns fan. At this moment, in the ragged middle of February, it begins: beneath the snow, roots quicken. In the Deep South, alre...
Palestina ni nchi ya Waisraeli waliyopewa na Mungu wa Yakobo. Hata hivyo, hawakutimiza masharti. Mungu aliwaagiza kuua kila mtu katika nchi ya Kaanani na miji yake yote. Waisraeli, wakiongozwa na Yoshua, waliua watu wengi katika nchi ya Kaanani. Hawa...
Endings are abstruse, mystic and unreal. They are but depleted beginnings purposed to be substituted with newer ones.A transition of outlook and time, similar to our differing moods before and after slumber. Before the act we witness an exhaustion, a...
As McMasters raised the shotgun, the man removed his glasses. There were fields of stars where his eyes should have been. But they weren’t reflections of the night sky. These stars were a glimpse of a dim and distant future where the very laws of p...
Bagheera: [to Baloo while Mowgli sleeps after they save him from King Louie] Mowgli seems to have man's ability to get into trouble, and your influence hasn't been exactly... Baloo: Shh! [softly] Baloo: Keep it down! You're gonna wake little buddy. H...
Today I hope to live life. To wake each morning and persevere through the struggles. To understand that there is reason and purpose. I choose to find my path and strive upon it, rising everytime I fall. I choose to keep smiling through the pain, and ...
When Americans find out I grew up in the tenements, the question they invariably ask me is “how did you end up there?” Americans, it seems, find comfort in reasons and explanations. They honestly believe that if they can find the reason for someo...
Growing up, I'd already decided I wanted to be a beatnik. A Bohemian poet, I thought. Or a musician. Maybe an artist. I'd dress in black turtlenecks and smoke Gitanes. I'd listen to cool jazz in clubs, getting up to read devastating truths from my no...
When you keep hurting someone, you do one of three things. Either you fill them up with hate, and they destroy everything around them. Or you fill them up with sadness, and they destroy themselves. Or you fill them up with justice, and they try to de...
