One third of our life is spent in sleep. It is consolation for the troubles of our waking hours or atonement for their pleasures; but I have never experienced sleep to be mere repose. After a few minutes' lethargy, a new life begins, untrammeled by t...
Teagan - "What is it?" Garreth - "No one's ever prayed for me before. I've always heard your prayers. You prayed for me to come to you when you had a bad dream. I even heard you pray for a perfect, selfless, superwonderful boy to fall in love with. B...
Don't think for a minute that bad publicity and endless criticism don't leave their claw marks on everyone concerned. Your friends try to cheer you up by saying lightly, "I suppose you get used to it, and ignore it." You try. You try damned hard. But...
At last, giving me the boat's sail for a bed, he stretched himself out on the jagged rocks, and slept soundly as the unsanctified in a comfortable pew of a church; --I wish the benches were softer, and the cushions higher, as then more people might b...
When men in Congress come to blows at somemthing someone said, I always notice that it shows their blood is quick and red; But if two women disagree, with very little noise, It proves, and this seems strange to me, that women have no poise.
Martin is your best friend, isn't he?' a sweet and well-intentioned girl once said when both of us were present: it was the only time I ever felt awkward about this precious idea, which seemed somehow to risk diminishment if it were uttered aloud.
I fear that much of the Christianity that surrounds us assumes our task is to save appearances by protecting God from Job-like anguish. But if God is the God of Jesus Christ, then God does not need our protection. What God demands is not protection, ...
Edward had a personal horror of violence and never endorsed or excused it, though in a documentary he made about the conflict he said that actions like the bombing of pilgrims at Tel Aviv airport 'did more harm than good,' which I remember thinking w...
Her eyes narrowed with feigned disgust. "I cannot walk backwards anymore! I'm too afraid you'll run me into something." He released one of her hands and reached around her, to cup her firm behind. "Trust me. I'd never risk hurting your backside.
The smell slaps me sideways. Like when Mom grabs a container she forgot about from the back of the fridge and she says, “Here Mickey, smell this and see if it’s still good,” and I open it and take a whiff before noticing the fuzz. Like that.
I’ll make Goyle do lines, it’ll kill him, he hates writing,” said Ron happily. He lowered his voice to Goyle’s low grunt and, screwing up his face in a look of pained concentration, mimed writing in midair. “I... must... not... look... like...
It occurs to me that even though Zoya and I are both still alive, my life is already over. She will be taken from me soon and there will be no reason for me to continue without her. We are one person, you see. We are GeorgyandZoya.
I cannot admit this out loud. In the first place, we are expected to be supermoms these days, instead of admitting that we have flaws. It is tempting to believe that all mothers wake up feeling fresh every morning, never raise their voices, only cook...
I once heard someone on the radio saying that a bee is never more than forty minutes away from starving to death, and this fact has stayed with me because it seems to have a certain personal resonance. My children are in a perpetual proximity to cata...
Never before had I known the sudden quiver of understanding that travels from word to brain to heart, the way a new language can move, coil, swim into life under the eyes, the almost savage leap of comprehension, the instantaneous, joyful release of ...
I learned that within the confines of God’s story, nothing had been stolen from me, but rather everything was given to me. My life, which felt so out of control, was in reality in complete control – God’s control.
I got both hands on her throat and there was nothing inside me but the black madness of that desire to kill her, to close my hands until she turned purple and lay still and there’d be an end to her forever. Let them send me to the chair. Let ’em ...
Hagrid looked down at his umbrella and scratched his beard. 'Shouldn'ta lost me temper,' he said ruefully, 'but it didn't work anyway. Meant ter turn him into a pig, but I suppose he was so much like a pig anyway there wasn't much left ter do.
I thought you quit smoking." "Did. For recreational purposes." His father flicked open his Zippo lighter. The smell of the lighter fluid filled the immediate proximity. "This is medicinal." He lit the cigarette, clicked the top of the lighter shut, a...
I always say the truth is best even when we find it unpleasant. Any rat in a sewer can lie. It's how rats are. It's what makes them rats. But a human doesn't run and hide in dark places, because he's something more. Lying is the most personal act of ...
Whatever you had -- I don't know what it was, and that's fine. But it must not be easy for you. You miss him, and that's okay. But you have to figure that if it's too much hard to hang on, then maybe you should let go.