It's just like any relationship," Raelin told him with a grin, while Aldri practiced over and over again. "You need to coax her, persuade her, impress her, not knock her over the head with a mallet. Sometimes, for complicated things, you even need to...
People link the heart to stupidity. They say the heart wants what it wants; it is foolish and driven. They play the victim and blame their emotions for every pain they suffer. The truth is that we own our body.. Therefore we own our heart and it will...
When he lifted his head, she clung to his shoulders, both of them breathing hard. He cradled her cheek in one palm. “I’m not asking you to believe now. I know it’s too soon for that, after…well, after everything. If you can believe just for t...
People get their benefits as individuals but we all pay the cost together, same as the doomed mice of Gough island. The problem is not just fossil fuel emissions either, humans are killing rhinos, elephants, gorillas, and countless other endangered a...
All my life I have been a poor go-to-sleeper. No matter how great my weariness, the wrench of parting with consciousness is unspeakably repulsive to me. I loathe Somnus, that black-masked headsman binding me to the block; and if in the course of year...
Then the woman in the bed sat up and looked about her with wild eyes; and the oldest of the old men said: 'Lady, we have come to write down the names of the immortals,’ and at his words a look of great joy came into her face. Presently she, began t...
The colonialist's existence is so closely aligned with that of the colonized that he will never be able to overcome the argument which states that misfortune is good for something. With all his power he must disown the colonized while their existence...
By the Hospital Lane goes the 'Faeries Path.' Every evening they travel from the hill to the sea, from the sea to the hill. At the sea end of their path stands a cottage. One night Mrs. Arbunathy, who lived there, left her door open, as she was expec...
The personal inevitably trumps the political, and the erotic trumps all: We will remember that Cleopatra slept with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony long after we have forgotten what she accomplished in doing so, that she sustained a vast, rich, densely...
I figured I could get a job at a filling station somewhere, putting gas and oil in people's cars. I didn't care what kind of job it was, though. Just so people didn't know me and I didn't know anybody. I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one...
In the early twelfth century century the Virgin had been the supreme protectress of civilisation. She had taught a race of tough and ruthless barbarians the virtues of tenderness and compassion. The great cathedrals of the Middle Ages were her dwelli...
The daughter of the literary biographer Leslie Stephen, and close friend of the innovative biographer of the Victorians, Lytton Strachey, Woolf herself put forward, in ‘The New Biography’ (1927) (reviewing work by another biographer acquaintance,...
He very soon acquired the reputation of being the best public speaker of his time. He had taken pains to master the art, approaching it with scientific precision. On the morning of a day on which he was giving a speech, he once told Wilkie Collins, h...
Think of the most fussy science teacher you ever had. The one who docked your grade if the sixth decimal place in your answer was rounded incorrectly; who tucked in his periodic table T-shirt, corrected every student who said "weight" when he or she ...
One late-autumn day I opened the back door to fetch some water, and there was a young hare sat on my back step. Save for the twitching of its nose, it froze in position as if I had surprised it as it was about to knock. It was already the size of a f...
When we live completely from the mind over a period of time, we lose touch with the infinite self, and then we begin to feel lost. This happens when we'are in mode all the time, rather than . The latter means letting ourselves be who and what we are ...
So while this is a book about fighting back, in the end this is a book about love. The songbirds and the salmon need your heart, no matter how weary, because even a broken heart is still made of love. They need your heart because they are disappearin...
I drift off for a while. I don't know how long, but when I open my eyes, the Oscars are still on and Alex tells me that Sid has gone and this makes me a little sad. Whatever the four of us had is over. He is my daughter's boyfriend now, and I am a fa...
The marine underworld stretched below the ship and embodied many secrets. The disappearance of Olga had become one of the mysteries that would remain with Stefania and her family. The disappearance of her baby sister and sudden departure from her hom...
Worried about fitting in, being part of a group, feeling accepted? People gather in groups of similar interests, but these interests are usually based on external preferences and attires. “We think that if other people like this sport or activity, ...
