Count Ayakura’s abstraction persisted. He believed that only a vulgar mentality was willing to acknowledge the possibility of catastrophe. He felt that taking naps was much more beneficial than confronting catastrophes. However precipitous the futu...
I love you, he thought, looking at Win. I love every part of you, every thought and word...the entire complex, fascinating bundle of all the things you are. I want you with ten different kinds of need at once. I love all the seasons of you, the way y...
No longer mourn for me when I am dead than you shall hear the surly sullen bell give warning to the world that I am fled from this vile world with vilest worms to dwell: nay, if you read this line, remember not the hand that writ it, for I love you s...
El amor verdadero no era precisamente uno de esos absolutos; pregunta en la cual la palabra <>, sin embargo, tenía tanto que ver con la empleada por Kant o Hegel como la palabra <> con un descarrilamiento o un terremoto, con sus aullidos y su sangre...
As the wildly favorable word of mouth spread, however, the box office receipts began to soar. First, fans of musicals came. Then the ever-growing cadre of Julie Andrews devotees. Finally, those longing for a happy ending—anywhere—began to turn ou...
Wherever the family was, these two dogs, both six-year-old shepherd mixes, took up their posts at the central coming-and-going point. Gil called them concierge dogs. And it's true, they were inquisitive and accommodating. But they were not fawning or...
It was at a concert of lovely old music. After two or three notes of the piano the door was opened of a sudden to the other world. I sped through heaven and saw God at work. I suffered holy pains. I dropped all my defences and was afraid of nothing i...
You know, there's a place we all inhabit, but we don't much think about it, we're scarcely conscious of it, and it lasts for less than a minute a day. It's in the morning, for most of us. It's that time, those few seconds when we're coming out of sle...
My grandmother lived a remarkable life. She watched her nation fall to pieces; and even when she became collateral damage, she believed in the power of the human spirit. She gave when she had nothing; she fought when she could barely stand; she clung...
So what I want to know is why it is that I can no longer find you, in my mind. You are still there, just, but you are there like a ghost, a will o' the wisp. Not long ago you burned--your heart burned--in my mind like silver fire. But after that nigh...
Although it is very easy to marry a wife, it is very difficult to support her along with the children and the household. Accordingly, no one notices this faith of Jacob. Indeed, many hate fertility in a wife for the sole reason that the offspring mus...
Exercise has a direct brain connection, when you consider what it actually does. What we tend to overlook are the feedback loops that connect the brain to every cell in the body. Therefore when you throw a ball, run on a treadmill, or jog along the s...
Hawaii once had a rat problem. Then, somebody hit upon a brilliant solution. import mongooses from India. Mongooses would kill the rats. It worked. Mongooses did kill the rats. Mongooses also killed chickens, young pigs, birds, cats, dogs, and small ...
Speaking generally, however, when you interact with someone else, you are doing outer work (physical time, play time, connecting time) ... as many sociologists have pointed out, this area of life used to dominate everyday existence, at a time when fa...
Who knows how to make love stay? 1. Tell love you are going to Junior's Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if loves stays, it can have half. It will stay. 2. Tell love you want a momento of it and obtain a lock of its ha...
All real estate agents should be put on a decommissioned naval frigate which is then towed out into the deepest part of the Atlantic and sunk. It's rather unfortunate that, in recent years, real estate agents have become comedy betes-noires. Rather l...
Did you catch the time-of-great-suffering thing?” Her expression softened. “Can you just make sure I’m not around when it happens?” “No can do,” I said, strolling back to my office with a negating wave of my hand. “If I have to suffer, ...
If she answered, he could not hear it, and he certainly couldn't see her, so he went. First he crawled the rocks one by one, one by one, till his hands touched shore and the nursing sound of the sea was behind him. He felt around, crawled off and the...
She studied me with concern. She touched the new streak of gray in my hair that matched hers exactly—our painful souvenir from holding Atlas's burden. There was a lot I'd wanted to say to Annabeth, but Athena had taken the confidence out of me. I f...
My faithful companion, Zoe Nightshade, has passed into the stars. I must have a new lieutenant. And I intend to choose one. But first, Father Zeus, I must speak to you privately." Zeus beckoned Artemis forward. He leaned down and listened as she spok...
Death is a personal matter, arousing sorrow, despair, fervor, or dry-hearted philosophy. Funerals, on the other hand, are social functions. Imagine going to a funeral without first polishing the automobile. Imagine standing at a graveside not dressed...