Whatever our official pieties, deep down we all believe in lives. The sternest formalists are the loudest gossips, and if you ask a cultural-studies maven who believes in nothing but collective forces and class determinisms how she came to believe in...
We are all instruments pulling the bows across our own lungs. Windmills, still startling in every storm. Have you ever seen a newborn blinking at the light? I wanna do that every day. I wanna know what the kite called itself when it got away, when it...
People who volunteer at the recycling center or soup kitchen through a church or neighborhood group can come to feel part of something 'larger.' Such a sense of belonging calls on a different part of a self than the market calls on. The market calls ...
People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To be entertained is a passive state--it is to receive...
Fear isn't so difficult to understand. After all, weren't we all frightened as children? Nothing has changed since Little Red Riding Hood faced the big bad wolf. What frightens us today is exactly the same sort of thing that frightened us yesterday. ...
I feel that writers think with their noses to the ground, and the dark stuff kind of comes to me more, even though I really am sort of an upbeat guy. It's an honest descent into darkness. And you can't have the joy without the grief - it's why we lis...
'Pulp Fiction' was probably one of the first films I ever saw that really kind of took effect on me. I was about four years old - obviously wasn't supposed to be seeing that film; my sister kind of sneaked it out and we got to see it. She's older tha...
I think this is really a defining moment for the Arab world. The problem is, it is all going to be about blood, sweat and tears. In certain countries it may be just sweat, and in some countries sweat and tears, and in some countries, as you can see, ...
We can discover much about God by looking at nature. Take the Trinity for example. The Trinity is sort of like an apple. You've got the seeds, the flesh, and the skin. Three different things. Still, together they form one thing, an apple. And under n...
We had a few tragic accidents in our state, as they've had in every state, from train crashes on down. And really, no text is worth dying for; that is our message to young people. And this is such a new phenomenon when you look at the number of texts...
An affirmation a day, keeps our negative thoughts away! Affirmations are our mental vitamins - words with power. They provide the exquisite supplementary positive thoughts to enhance and balance the barrage of negative events and thoughts we experien...
In times of uncertainty - whether it's economic, psychological, emotional, or philosophical - people often say that the only thing we can truly control is our attitudes. If that's true, then I'm going to spend today walking my 14-year-old dog on a fr...
My favorite country blues player was Big Bill Broonzy. City blues was Freddie King, but I liked them all - Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Ralph Willis, Lonnie Johnson, Brownie McGhee and the three Kings, B.B., Albert and Freddie. Jazz-wise, I listene...
Not reforming the NHS would have been a much easier decision for me as secretary of state to have taken. We could have just protected the NHS from cuts, put in an extra £12.5bn and left it there. But sooner or later the cracks would have started t...
We judge others instantly by their clothes, their cars, their appearance, their race, their education, their social status. The list is endless. What gets me is that most people decide who another person is before they have even spoken to them. What'...
Pretty much every weekend, my wife and I have the shall-we-live-in-the-country conversation. I suppose it's something to do with getting older and feeling I want to shed some of the things I've been doing for the last 20 years and go back to my roots...
I have always believed that a trademark is the life of an enterprise and that it must be protected boldly. A trademark and a company name are not just clever gimmicks-they carry responsibility and guarantee the quality of the product. If someone trie...
The merciful Providence - or whatever power there is in the universe - has so ordained things that our little world will go on without us. Indeed, it will not miss us for long. It is a comfort to know that the waters close over us quickly. Only a few...
We can't all succeed following the same path as successful men followed. Each person has it's own destiny. You might get stuck at any stage if it's not your way but you'll fly away if it's yours. Follow your mind and take serious anything you do.
Twenty years ago I wanted to move to a nice place so our Charley would grow up a nice boy and learn a profession. But instead we live in a jungle, so he can only be a wild animal. D'you think I picked the East Side like Columbus picked America?
...happiness does not consist in amusement. In fact, it would be strange if our end were amusement, and if we were to labor and suffer hardships all our life long merely to amuse ourselves.... The happy life is regarded as a life in conformity with v...
