The ability to overcome failure--to live through it and move on--is crucial. If we are not willing to face failure--if we don't have the skills to survive it--we have precluded any real creativity or risk. Failure may never become our friend, but if ...
Every time I go to sleep, I know I may never wake up. How could anyone expect to? You drop your tiny, helpless mind into a bottomless well, crossing your fingers and hoping when you pull it out on its flimsy fishing wire it hasn't been gnawed to bone...
Reading literature is a way of reaching back to something bigger and older and different. It can give you the feeling that you belong to the past as well as the present, and it can help you realize that your present will someday be someone else’s p...
And what about those [writers' workshop] critiques, by the way? How valuable are they? Not very, in my experience, sorry. A lot of them are maddeningly vague. someone may say. It seems to occur to few of the attendees that if you have a feeling you j...
According to the Buddha's teaching the beginning of the life-stream of living beings is unthinkable. THe believer in the creation of life by God may be astonished at this reply. But if you were to ask him 'What is the beginning of God?' he would answ...
Like the pain of a bad wound, the effect of a deep shock takes some while to be felt. When a child is told, for the first time in his life, that a person he has known is dead, although he does not disbelieve it, he may well fail to comprehend it and ...
Where’s Nadine?” “She went out for a walk the other day and didn’t come back.” “Really.” I tried to sound surprised. “No sweat,” he said. “Pussy may well be the only true renewable resource, Leo. I’ve got another one lined up fo...
Aye, say thou fool? Then fool, good Sir, am I. But when thou sayest fool remember well That fools do walk in foolish company. So if I am a fool, perhaps ’tis true That other fools around me may be found.
And I pray one prayer--I repeat it till my tongue stiffens--Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you--haunt me, then!...Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, wher...
First, the explosion of life. Then came the celebration. Such as it had been for generations and generations, as long as the eldest of the eldest could remember; as long as the record books had kept steady score. By the time the first buds were edgin...
Some years ago I read a book that brought Einstein's theory of relativity down to an eighth grade level. This convinced me that any subject can be made easy. In other words, always beware of anyone who tells you a topic is above you or better left to...
The book exists for us perchance which will explain our miracles and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere uttered. These same questions that disturb and puzzle and confound us have in their turn occurred to all the...
That's my point: if you own thirty or more books, or you are reading any book at this moment, you may protest all you want, but you were born on the wrong continent.
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at; as railroads lead to Boston or New York. We are in g...
This may be impossible for you to believe," Colt said in a hushed voice, "but as recently as last year, I was a hyper, naive-albeit extremely good-looking-minor myself." "And now you're a persistent, outdoorsy, unshaven man-boy who cavorts with clone...
Every sunset which I witness inspires me with the desire to go to a west as distant and as fair as that into which the Sun goes down. He appears to migrate westward daily and tempt us to follow him. He is the Great Western Pioneer whom the nations fo...
Thoughts turn to other's just a little more this time of year. Days grow shorter and memories grow longer. Families and friends gather in celebration or hope. Giving is a reflection of our love and caring for each other and those less fortunate. May ...
Your fear comes not from what you're afraid will happen. Your fear comes from thinking what may happen. You cannot predict your future. You can however, create your future. What happened yesterday is over. What happens today is up to you….
Mathematics as an expression of the human mind reflects the active will, the contemplative reason, and the desire for aesthetic perfection. Its basic elements are logic and intuition, analysis and construction, generality and individuality. Though di...
Just for today, smile a little more. Just for today, ask someone how he or she is really doing. Just for today, remember, while some may have it better than you do, there are others whom definitely have it worse than you! Just for today, just let go,...
A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, the longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one's suffering, though it...
