In a thousand years or ten thousand, no one would remember my nation. It, too, would share in oblivion and prove to not matter, to never have mattered. The same for my species, and the earth, the universe, and God. When the last star ...
Every feeling I ever knew was up in that sky: Twinkling joyous sunlight; airy, giggling cloud wisps; blinding columns of sun. Orbs of gold, pink, flesh, utterly cheesy in their luminosity. Gigantic puffy clouds, welcoming, forgiving, repeating infini...
A solemn day. Barring a stay by Sup Ct, & with my final nod, Utah will use most extreme power & execute a killer. Mourn his victims. Justice. [...] I just gave the go ahead to Corrections Director to proceed with Gardner's execution. May God grant hi...
I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal. A day when one has not pushed oneself to the limit seems a damaged, damaging day, a sinful day. Not ...
As far as I can tell, kids are called bossy when they behave in a dictatorial and domineering fashion. They’re called bossy when they try to order people around and refuse to listen to authority figures. Here’s a suggestion: instead of telling us...
Nightmare completed, another humiliating defeat. 10 goals in 2 game. It will take time to come out from such humiliating defeat for Brazilian fans. But I think when you like something, when you fall to someone, when you are in love, you like them wha...
When Ginny realized I wouldn’t ask Max for a divorce, her request became an ultimatum. One day she screamed, “Make up your mind, Simon. It’s either me or your wife, you can’t have it both ways.” She didn’t sound vulnerable like a rejected...
Why does one begin to write? Because she feels misunderstood, I guess. Because it never comes out clearly enough when she tries to speak. Because she wants to rephrase the world, to take it in and give it back again differently, so that everything is...
Freedom is a state of mind, I said wondering where I'd heard it before, not a state of being. We are all slaves to gravity and morality and the vicissitudes of nature. Our genes govern us much more than we'd like to think. Our bodies can not know abs...
If you were born in a country or at a time not only when nobody comes to kill your wife and your children, but also nobody comes to ask you to kill the wives and children of others, then render thanks to God and go in peace. But always keep this thou...
I think you're the kind of man a girl can count on. You just can't let go of losing your family. You can't let yourself love because you think your heart can't handle it . . . that something bad will happen. But you're wrong. It's true . . . grief is...
A creative writing teacher at San Jose State used to say about clichés: 'Avoid them like the plague.' Then he'd laugh at his own joke. The class laughed along with him, but I always thought clichés got a bum rap. Because, often, they're dead-on. Bu...
It was only a smile, nothing more. It didn't make everything all right. It didn't make ANYTHING all right. Only a smile. A tiny thing. A leaf in the woods, shaking in the wake of a startled bird's flight. But I'll take it. With open arms. Because whe...
It was the strangest sensation, fallin' in love. 'Bout the only thing I compare it to would be jumpin' off a big cliff. Once you're past the edge, there ain't no particular reason to be graspin' for a line a safety. You just keep on fallin' anyhow, s...
Clary: What are you doing here, anyway? Jace: 'Here' as in your bedroom or 'here' as in the great spiritual question of our purpose here on this planet? If you're asking whether it's all just a cosmic coincidence or there's a greater metaethical purp...
And when Jace was ten years old, Valentine killed him. Michael, I mean." "That sounds like something he would do," said Luke. His tone was neutral, but there was something in his voice that made Clary look at him sideways. Did he not believe her? "Ja...
Music, even at terrible moments, can make you accept so much more- accept your dark sides, or the things that happened to you. Maybe it's just because you see that we are not alone. And that's what the concert situation is about for me, when I'm sitt...
Bach's music confront the player and the audience in a very alone way, and I try at that moment to put away pretensions-in levels of violin playing, pretensions of being a strong man, of being invulnerable- and instead say, 'this is where all of us u...
I myself have seen this woman draw the stars from the sky; she diverts the course of a fast-flowing river with her incantations; her voice makes the earth gape, it lures the spirits from the tombs, send the bones tumbling from the dying pyre. At her ...
That's a tumor. It goes across my liver, up through my lungs, all the way around my heart. And when they were done trying to cut it out, nuke it out with radiation and chemotherapy it out, it left so much scar tissue that when I walk outside now in c...
Most people new to a city on the ocean would probably go to the beach during the day when there are people around. I, on the other hand, decided to try a midnight swim at the somewhat gamy Santa Monica pier, by myself. That is, until a nearby guard k...
