When I grow up I mean to be A Lion large and fierce to see. I'll mew so loud that Cook in fright Will give me all the cream in sight. And anyone who dares to say 'Poor Puss' to me will rue the day. Then having swallowed him I'll creep Into the Guest ...
{ } ... I remain an utter disbeliever in almost all that you consider the most sacred truths... But whether there be a God and whatever be His nature; whether we have an immortal soul or not, or whatever may be our state after death, I can have no fe...
There were so many of us who would have to live with things done and things left undone that day. Things that did not go right, things that seemed okay at the time because we could not see the future. If only we could see the endless string of conseq...
There was no attack on religion because people were generally indifferent to religion. They were neither hot nor cold. They were the tepid, the materialistic, who hoped that by Sunday churchgoing they would be taking care of the afterlife, if there w...
In general, opinions contrary to those commonly received can only obtain a hearing by studied moderation of language, and the most cautious avoidance of unnecessary offence, from which they hardly ever deviate even in a slight degree without losing g...
And upon his return, Gherkins, who had always considered his uncle as a very top-hatted sort of person, actually saw him take from his handkerchief-drawer an undeniable automatic pistol. It was at this point that Lord Peter was apotheosed from the st...
It's our goddamed city! It's our goddamed country. No terrorist can take it from us for so long as we're free. Once we're not free, the terrorists win! Take it back! You're young enough and stupid enough not to know that you can't possibly win, so yo...
She is no longer a solitary being. She is a million different parts, each reborn, granted the miracle she prayed for in the months before her death, to be completely healed. Death is the price for rebirth. Death. Who would have thought it would come ...
Call me infidel, call me atheist, call me what you will, I intend so to treat my children, that they can come to my grave and truthfully say: 'He who sleeps here never gave us a moment of pain. From his lips, now dust, never came to us an unkind word...
'And it means naught to you to obey your father's orders? Where is your fealty?' Christian felt his face flush with a surge of bitter rage. 'I keep faith with those who have kept faith with me.' William shook his head in disbelief. 'God save me from ...
Believe. Believe in your destiny and the star from which it shines. Believe you have been sent from God as an arrow shot from His own bow. It is the single universal trait that the great of this earth have all shared, while the shadows are fraught wi...
I swear that while I live I will do what little I can to preserve and to augment the liberties of man, woman, and child. It is a question of justice, of mercy, of honesty, of intellectual development. . It is a question of honesty. The man who is not...
After dinner, at five o’clock, the crew distributed folding canvas cots to the passengers, and each person opened his bed wherever he could find room, arranged it with the bedclothes from his petate, and set the mosquito netting over that. Those wi...
An older, inebriated Scot who looked like he'd been sitting on his barstool all day looked me up and down, then smelled the air. "Heh, neebr, goat a deid an'mal in yer bac'pac, or iz it ye tha' bloody stinks?" My brain took a moment to translate. "Ac...
In 1492, the natives discovered they were indians, discovered they lived in America, discovered they were naked, discovered that the Sin existed, discovered they owed allegiance to a King and Kingdom from another world and a God from another sky, and...
A man who wants to die feels angry and full of life and desperate and bored and exhausted, all at the same time; he wants to fight everyone, and he wants to curl up in a ball and hide in a cupboard somewhere. He wants to say sorry to everyone, and he...
There is a rational part of my brain and it says, Don't zap them, Warren. Ask questions first, find out who they are and why they're here, on your doorstep, lurking, banging. Find out their hopes and dreams. Offer them a glass of water. And that part...
There's something in the act of setting out that renews me, that fills me with a feeling of possibility. On the road, I'm forced to rely on instinct and intuition, on the kindness of strangers, in ways that illuminate who I am, ways that shed light o...
I believe that maturity is not an outgrowing, but a growing up: that an adult is not a dead child, but a child who survived. I believe that all the best faculties of a mature human being exist in the child. . . . that one of the most deeply human, an...
This book began with the assertion that Margaret Fuller's life was her most remarkable creation. It is just possible, however, that her most wonderful creations may still lie in the future. Fuller's most precious gift to us may reside in the ideas an...
And it was not merely tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, but hundreds of millions of people who were the obedient witnesses of this slaughter of the innocent. Nor were they merely obedient witnesses: when ordered to, they gave their support...