They played, not beautifully but deep, ignoring their often discordant strings and striking right into the heart of the music they knew best, the true notes acting as their milestones. On the poop above their heads, where the weary helmsmen tended th...
Notice that your judgments of what exists are the same kind of judgments you make about how to live your life. There aren't two kinds of things we do: judge what exists and decide what we want to do about it. Fundamentally, there is one kind of thing...
For death is the only certain thing in life,and despite this cliché being an absolute truth, with only the timing varying from one person to another, we never seem to be prepared for it. It is regarded as an end, as final and as negative, not as the...
We come together, we create our families, we chose our mates out of the desire to form a life together. Love takes many forms, wears many faces, but when it's real, when it touches your heart, you will know it and--with hope--embrace it. Love is stro...
On our earth we can only love sincerely with suffering and through suffering. We do not know how to love any other way and know no other love. I want to suffer so that I can love. I desire, I thirst in this moment to kiss, weeping tears, that very ea...
The struggle is lost. I believe we have to live, as long as we live, in the expectation and hope of changing the world for the better. That may sound naive. It may even sound sentimental. Never mind: I believe it. What are we to live for, except life...
It neither kills outright nor inflicts apparent physical harm, yet the extent of its destructive toll is already greater than that of any war, plague, famine, or natural calamity on record - and its potential damage to the quality of human life and t...
No boyfriend," I said, perhaps a little too quickly. Have I mentioned my total lack of social life? Having a dream about Alex last night was the closest thing I'd had to a date in months and that was only a dream and it was about a guy who was undead...
Rage swept over her at being young, young and little, as if some evil fairy had put that spell on her. Why must you be locked up in this dreadful cage of childhood for twenty or a hundred years? Nothing in life was possible unless you were old and ri...
If the whole world is evil, then the tragedy that befell you is justified," she went on. "That would make it easier for you to accept the deaths of your wife and daughters. But if good people do exist, then, however much you deny it, your life will b...
Oh, my dear, if you only knew how strange is the matter regarding which I am here, it is you who would laugh. I have learned not to think little of any one's belief, no matter how strange it may be. I have tried to keep an open mind, and it is not th...
Sometimes the clouds weren't weightless. Sometimes their bellies got dark and full. It was life. It happened. It didn't mean it wasn't scary, or that I wasn't still afraid, but now I knew that as long as I was standing under it with Braden beside me ...
One of the secrets to life, Epiphany, is to find your gifts and focus on those. Leave your liabilities in the dust of the road not taken. The world is an imperfect place. Everyone struggles. Successful people see trials as growth experiences, rather ...
A man could be a lover and defender of the wilderness without ever in his lifetime leaving the boundaries of asphalt, powerlines, and right-angled surfaces. We need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it. We need a refuge even though we may...
Façade. One, simple word. But, very complex portents. It’s like living a life of half-dead. You are neither fully inside a grave, nor completely out of it, beyond the oppressive calmness of the slabs, tombstones and plaques. There is one solace th...
A great library doesn't have to be big or beautiful. It doesn't have to have the best facilities or the most efficient staff or the most users. A great library provides. It is enmeshed in the life of a community in a way that makes it indispensable. ...
You do not mind my humor?” “Not at all. I’ve not laughed like this …” His brows drew together. “I think I’ve never laughed like this.” “Usually I exasperate people. And I jest at inappropriate times. Such as during executions. Freya...
It was the ultimate cautionary tale, the moral being Don't fall, as if they were made of glass. In a sense they were--their fragility was irrefutable, medically proven--and yet Emily detested the inevitable rundown of accidents and tragedies, the mor...
For the first time in his life, Mont Blanc for a moment looked to him what it was - a chaos of anarchic and purposeless forces - and he needed days of repose to see it clothe itself again with the illusions of his senses, the white purity of its snow...
The first serious consciousness of Nature's gesture - her attitude towards life-took form then as a phantasm, a nightmare, all insanity of force. For the first time, the stage-scenery of the senses collapsed; the human mind felt itself stripped naked...
Often, as she leafed through the sticky, plastic-coated pages, spotting herself with a frizzy perm or wearing a loud, printed blouse, she was struck by how long life was, and how much time had passed, and she wished she could go back and apologize to...