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f29ab44 I had the need to be the good master, but definitely the master, no matter what the cost. Pat Conroy
c076b65 I was born in the age of "alas"." -- nostalgia Pat Conroy
7f467d0 I've always admired people who give accurate directions, and the tribe is small. communication directions discipleshiphim hospitality Pat Conroy
04fa7ac I had declared in public my desire to be a writer ... I wanted to develop a curiosity that was oceanic and insatiable as well as a desire to learn and use every word in the English language that didn't sound pretentious or ditzy. Pat Conroy
d371f8d A good movie had never once affected me in the same life-changing way a good book could. Books had the power to alter my view of the world forever. A great movie could change my perceptions for a day. movies Pat Conroy
9d9090f Like many men and women who make egregious and irretrievable mistakes with their own children, she would redeem herself by becoming the perfect grandmother. Pat Conroy
a11f669 Courage is the antidote to danger. danger Erle Stanley Gardner
0499241 Does he know about me? George wonders; do any of them? Oh yes, probably. It wouldn't interest them. They don't want to know about my feelings or my glands or anything below my neck. I could just as well be a severed head carried into the classroom to lecture to them from a dish. gay Christopher Isherwood
065d58f By the time it has gotten dressed, it has become he; has become already more or less George -- though still not the whole George they demand and are prepared to recognize. Those who call him on the phone at this hour of the morning would be bewildered, maybe even scared, if they could realize what this three-quarters-human thing is what they are talking to. But, of course, they never could--its voice's mimicry of their George is nearly perf.. Christopher Isherwood
8491d22 His boredom was like a nostalgia for the whole world. He was homesick for everywhere but here. nostalgic Christopher Isherwood
3bb3baa The living room is dark and low-ceilinged, with bookshelves all along the wall opposite the windows. These books have not made George nobler or better or more truly wise. It is just that he likes listening to their voices, the one or the other, according to his mood. He misuses them quite ruthlessly - despite the respectful way he has to talk about them in public - to put him to sleep, to take his mind off the hands of the clock, to relax t.. Christopher Isherwood
772bcfd Christ, it is sad, sad to see on quite a few of these faces - young ones particularly - a glum, defeated look. Why do they feel this way about their lives? Sure, they are underpaid. Sure, they have no great prospects, in the commercial sense. Sure, they can't enjoy the bliss of mingling with corporation executives. But isn't it any consolation to be with students who are still three-quarters alive? Isn't it some tiny satisfaction to be of u.. Christopher Isherwood
a4cf90b What is one ever doing anywhere? Christopher Isherwood
2cc7c19 But George is getting old. Won't it very soon be too late? Never use those words to George. He won't listen. He daren't listen. Damn the future. Let Kenny and the kids have it. Let Charley keep the past. George clings only to Now. It is Now that he must find another Jim. Now that he must love. Now that he must live.... Christopher Isherwood
c112dad The world is full of terrible suffering, compared to which the small inconveniences of my childhood are as a drop of rain in the sea. Richard Rhodes
db22446 Why we should believe in wolf children seems somehow easier to understand than the ways we distinguish between what is human and what is animal behavior. In making such distinctions we run the risk of fooling ourselves completely. We assume that the animal is entirely comprehensible and, as Henry Beston has said, has taken form on a plane beneath the one we occupy. It seems to me that this is a sure way to miss the animal and to see, instea.. Barry Lopez
ef75f05 The theatre can teach us some truth, but it is the truth of the illusory nature of our existence. It can alert us to the dream-like quality of our lives, their brevity, mutability and lack of solid grounds. As such, by reminding us of our mortality, it can foster in us the virtue of humility. Terry Eagleton
26feb63 A poem is a piece of semiotic sport, in which the signifier has been momentarily released from its grim communicative labours and can disport itself disgracefully. Freed from a loveless marriage to a single meaning, it can play the field, wax promiscous, gambol outrageously with similar unattached signifiers. If the guardians of conventional morality knew what scandalous stuff they were inscribing on their tombstones, they would cease to do.. poetry Terry Eagleton
0680772 Why, did you know that there are almost as many kinds of stillness as there are sounds? But, sadly enough, no one pays any attention to them these days. Norton Juster
7eae308 And, most important of all," added the Mathemagician, "here is your own magic staff. Use it well and there is nothing it cannot do for you." He placed in Milo's breast pocket a small gleaming pencil which, except for the size, was much like his own." pencil Norton Juster
386e0f6 What kind of a place is Expectations?" inquired Milo, unable to see the humor and feeling very doubtful of the little man's sanity. "Good question, good question," he exclaimed. "Expectations is the place you must always go to before you get to where you're going. Of course, some people never go beyond Expectations, but my job is to hurry them along whether they like it or not." Norton Juster
aee906f I wonder where I am," said Milo in a very worried tone. "You're . . . in . . . the . . . Dol . . . drums," wailed a voice that sounded far away. He looked around quickly to see who had spoken. No one was there, and it was as quiet and still as one could imagine. "Yes . . . the . . . Dol . . . drums," yawned another voice, but still he saw no one. "WHAT ARE THE DOLDRUMS?" he cried loudly, and tried very hard to see who would answer this time.. Norton Juster
e52c497 Just because you have a choice, it doesn't mean that any of them HAS to be right. Norton Juster
8c6049c Do all those words mean the same thing?" gasped Milo. "Of course." "Certainly." "Precisely." "Exactly." "Yes," they replied in order. "Well, then," said Milo, not understanding why each one said the same thing in a slightly different way, "wouldn't it be simpler to use just one? It would certainly make more sense." "Nonsense." "Ridiculous." "Fantastic." "Absurd." "Bosh," they chorused again, and continued. "We're not interested in making se.. Norton Juster
a3bd2ff He punctuated this last thought with such a deep sigh that a house sparrow singing near by stopped and rushed home to be with his family. Norton Juster
02784b7 New start or not, there was a line to be drawn, and that line was singing musicals to yourself as serious psychological motivation. Maureen Johnson
06b995f Hot tea," he said, holding the cups. "It's just wrong." Maureen Johnson
9a2962b The best I ever got was that woman who kept having me come up to fix her TV. There was a lot of bending involved. I felt used and dirty. It's the price you pay for being one of those weedy but good-looking types, Scarlett said. Weedy? You hurt me. I prefer tall and scrawny. Unlike my partner, who's right behind you. Maureen Johnson
eb39dd2 From this close, she could see the color of his eyes perfectly. They were a misty, shifting blue marbled with gray, like smoke rising through an early morning sky. Maureen Johnson
8b51d46 DETECTION HAS MANY METHODS, MANY PATHWAYS, NARROW AND subtle. Fingerprints. The lost piece of thread. The dog barking in the night. But there is also Google. Maureen Johnson
9197291 After that, I felt like I had two lives. There was the me I had been before the attack, the one people knew and wanted to relate to. The one people wanted to comfort and fix. And there was another me, a hidden me that no one ever saw. There was a me who had tasted death. That me knew things others people didn't know. Maureen Johnson
f4470c7 I love Ginny's expedition! Maureen Johnson
ca7d45a You want to go back to my house the long way?" he asked. "Or the shortcut? You have to be cold-" "Long way," I replied. "The long way, for sure." Maureen Johnson
9acbceb Sometimes people graduate but they don't leave. They hang around for years, for no reason. I would think of ghosts like that, I decided. college ghosts letting-go Maureen Johnson
2d6f02f The late Dominic Breckland, Viscount Stratfield, was returning to life in a sea of woman's underwear. Jillian Hunter
06b994a The host in question, the chapel's owner, Grayston Boscastle, the fifth Marquess of Sedgecroft, sat thinking that the bride had the most appealing derriere he had seen in a long time. Not that he made a point of lusting after young women in wedding dresses, but he had been staring at the back of her for over two hours now. A normal man's curiosity could not help but be aroused. What else was he to look at? He wondered whether the rest of he.. Jillian Hunter
03724df And then I feel something else. Something that's totally new. I feel the tiniest sensation of hope. Maybe my life isn't over. Maybe my life has just begun. Blake Nelson
b957959 But what were you supposed to do with that weight? Once it was on you? Just be a man? Just suck it up? Maybe you were. Maybe that was the real test. Maybe that is exactly the thing that made you a man: the ability to function with the worst possible secrets in your brain. Which was why so many grown-up men seemed so ridiculous. They never felt that responsibility. They were untested, unproven; they were boys in grown-up clothes. depression guilt killing man murder responsibility secret secrets survival Blake Nelson
c2650a9 On Friday night, my dad wants to have a family activity. so we go ice-skating. It's me and my mom and my dad and my sister. It's like we're all together. It's like a beautiful dream. It's like the Disney Channel. Except that my dad and I hate each other. And my mom hates herself. And my sister is humiliated by the bunch of us. And I'm secretly waiting for the inevitable devastation of our entire civilization. But except for that. Blake Nelson
1272cda It was weird because my first couple stories had been so easy. Now it was like, the more you did it, the harder it became. But in another way, it was addicting. It was like gambling, every time you'd start another one you'd think Blake Nelson
92cad37 That's the thing: You can change things. You can repair mistakes. You can restart your whole life if you have to. But some things you never get back. Certain people. Certain moments in time when you don't know better than to shield your heart. You don't see those moments coming, you don't know it when they're happening, but later, as the plainness of life begins to show itself, you realize how important they were. You understand who really .. Blake Nelson
1396c19 What he had to tell them was a story Daniel Quinn
bf42271 Has it ever occurred to you to wonder if the history we teach our children is a lie? Daniel Quinn
6847f91 Simple things are almost always the hardest to explain, Julie. Showing someone how to tie a shoelace is easy. Explaining it is almost impossible. Daniel Quinn