The Christians who engaged in infamous persecutions and shameful inquisitions were not evil men but misguided men. The churchmen who felt they had an edict from God to withstand the progress of science, whether in the form of a revolution or a theory...
Shimrod gave the boy a copper penny. 'Bring me now a goblet of good tawny wine.' By a sleight of magic Shimrod augmented the acuity of his hearing, so that the whispers of two young lovers in a far corner were now clearly audible, as were the innkeep...
Everyone thinks that the old days were better, or that they were harder, and the modern times are chaotic and complex, or easier all around, but I think people's hearts have always been the same, happy and sad, and that hasn't changed at all. It's ju...
Before cruelly vilifying them from a great height, the mudslingers at newspapers and journals should bear in mind that all artistic endeavors were by and large a mixture of effort and imagination, the embodiment of a solitary endeavor, of a sometimes...
You think your children are better than mine? Ha! When yours were out playing with gold, mine were out fighting for survival. You taught your children to roll in money when I taught mine what it means to be strong.
One of the hardest lessons in young Sam's life had been finding out that the people in charge weren't in charge. It had been finding out that governments were not, on the whole, staffed by people who had a grip, and that plans were what people made i...
To Mr. Blot, who went through life an unconscious example of the raison d'être of the British Empire, a shipwreck was merely one of the many things to be ignored. His was a calming influence.
There were a few other moves of his father's he could do without as well - the sucker punches, the ruffling of the hair, the way of pronouncing the word son, in a slightly deeper voice. This hearty way of talking was getting worse, as if his father w...
What manner of people they were only books and other people could tell... and the tale was a long and gory one dating from the dim, conjectural dawn of history. But being human they were as apt to change as mother nature to remain constant.
We were just kids, what did we know about love? I knew I loved her, and she knew she didn’t love me. Turns out we were both wrong.
So often they made her think of the phrase “Blood is thicker than water,” because at times blood was the only bond they shared and she had to remind herself they were family, because at times it was unbelievable they were even related. She loved ...
We spread our sleeping bags on the snow and crawled inside. The vantage point was dizzying. It was impossible to tell whether the comet was above us or we were above the comet; we were all falling through space, missing the stars by inches.
Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them; one cannot share their hopes and apsirations, grasp their history, appreciate their poetry or savour their songs. I again realized that we were not different people with separate langua...
Breakfast seemed to be a good time for throwing your emotions around. Jodie said that at this place emotions were like Frisbees – people just tossed them around all day long like they were at a park.
Sarah, in the crush, was able to study Miss Lucas's face discreetly, she wondered what it was like to know that you were to be married, that you would have a home, an income, that you were set up for life. To have achieved all this simply by agreeing...
Amelia nodded her head, "That makes perfect sense." "No is doesn't," jeered Otto. "Yes, it does,” sighed Amelia. "Don't you ever remember anything important?" "Of course, I remember how many Star Trek seasons there were and when the Three Stooges w...
Five German soldiers and a police dog on a leash were looking down into the bed of the creek. The soldiers' blue eyes were filled with a bleary civilian curiosity as to why one American would try to murder another one so far from home, and why the vi...
Perhaps some people really are born unhappy. I surely hope not. Speaking for my sister and myself: We were born with the capacity and determination to be utterly happy all the time. Perhaps even in this we were freaks. Hi ho.
So, I said, when does the enchantment start? We were sitting side by side, facing the mountains. "It started when the earth was born." Her eyes were closed. Her face was golden in the setting sun. "It never stops. It is, always. It's just here.
When life knocks us down, God CAN put us back together again. He can meet us in our brokenness and restore us to something even more glorious than we were before we were shattered.
And I couldn't help wondering where the hell the fatherland was, what exactly were we fighting for? Did I find out? Ah, that's a good point. It may sound strange, but from talking to the other militiamen I realised it was our childhood memories we we...
