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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 30b6e34 | Secrets and lies, they eat your insides until all you have left is a hard thin skin that covers you like the shell of one of those eggs you poke a little hole in and draw out its eggy contents before you dye it for Easter. | Russell Banks | ||
| e580300 | Let the truth take care of itself, I decided. It's done all right on its own so far. | Russell Banks | ||
| 6768078 | One of the most difficult things to say to another person is, I hope that you will love me for no good reason. But it is what we all want and rarely dare to say to one another - to our children, to our parents and mates, to our friends, and to strangers. Especially to strangers, who have neither good nor bad reasons to love us. And it's why we tell each other stories that we pray will be transformed in the telling by that angel on the roof,.. | Russell Banks | ||
| 1d0db08 | They were totally alone, those kids, like each had been accidentally sent to earth from a distant planet to live among adult humans and be dependent on them for everything because compared to the adult humans they were extremely fragile creatures and didn't know the language or how anything here worked and hadn't arrived with any money. And because they were like forbidden by the humans to use their old language they'd forgotten it so they .. | Russell Banks | ||
| 1d63e48 | It was strange to stand there in front of the mirror and see myself like I was my own best friend, a kid wanted to hang with forever. This was a boy I could travel to the seacoasts with, a boy I'd like to meet up with in foreign cities like Calcutta and London and Brazil, a boy I could trust who also had a good sense of humor and liked smoked oysters from a can and good weed and the occasional 40 ounces of malt. If I was going to be alone f.. | Russell Banks | ||
| 87ceef6 | Incited. That was it, the guidingprinciple of her life in Copenhagen. She was incited to make an impression, a voluptous impression. She was incited to inflame attention and admiration. She was dressed for it, subtly schooled for it. And after a little while she gave herself up wholly to the fascinating business of being seen, gaped at, desired. | Nella Larsen | ||
| a7a4c27 | And then there was the sad sign that a young woman working at a Tim Hortons in Lethbridge, Alberta, taped to the drive-through window in 2007. It read, "No Drunk Natives." Accusations of racism erupted, Tim Hortons assured everyone that their coffee shops were not centres for bigotry, but what was most interesting was the public response. For as many people who called in to radio shows or wrote letters to the Lethbridge Herald to voice the.. | Thomas King | ||
| 4181f17 | Baseball. If there's a more beautiful word in the English language. I have yet to hear it....baseball has served as such a powerful link between Dad and me, and later between me and my son. | Tim Russert | ||
| b20838b | The meaning of life in western secular society is to be successful. So many people are success mad and they are encouraged to reach for something and have so called "worthwhile goals". Money, fame, power, good looks, possessions are the indicators of success and the media and advertising companies exploit this. People are conditioned to believe that they can only feel happy or good about themselves if they have these things. This of course .. | companies conditioned conditioning deceit fame goals good happiness indicators is lies life looks meaning media money of possessions power secular society success successful truth western what | Tim Crawshaw | |
| e94023e | You see, love is strong. Stronger than hate even. Love is the only thing that can kill hate, nothing else. You see, hate destroys and that's why love is stronger. It builds. There is hope for all the colored people in this country while one white woman can love one colored man. Love keeps one alive. It makes you understan and fight... | Peter Abrahams | ||
| 3ec48c4 | Teachers of subjects that this person wasn't even good at are kissing this person and renouncing the very subjects they taught. Math teachers are saying that math was just a funny way of saying "I love you." | Miranda July | ||
| 0b368e6 | I drove to the doctor's office as if I was starring in a movie Phillip was watching -- windows down, hair blowing, just one hand on the wheel. When I stopped at red lights, I kept my eyes mysteriously forward. Who is she? people might have been wondering. Who is that middle-aged woman in the blue Honda? | Miranda July | ||
| c52f424 | This person has hoped and dreamed and now it is really happening and this person can hardly believe it. But believing is not an issue here, the time for faith and fantasy is over, it is really really happening. It involves stepping forward and bowing. Possibly there is some kneeling, such as when one is knighted. One is almost never knighted. But this person may kneel and receive a tap on each shoulder with a sword. Or, more likely, this pe.. | humor literature short-story | Miranda July | |
| 8ead3d3 | Then one night I woke at three A.M. certain he was rotting like a chicken carcass. Only as I lowered him into the sink did I realize this was a crazy time to wash a baby and I began to cry because he was so trusting--I could do anything and he would go along with it, the little fool. | Miranda July | ||
| 642efba | It wasn't just movies that couldn't contain the full cast of characters -- it was us. We had to winnow life down so we knew where to put our tenderness and attention; and that was a good, sweet thing. But together or alone, we were still embedded in a kaleidoscope, ruthlessly varied and continuous, until the end of the end. I knew I would forget this within the hour, and then remember, and forget, and remember. Each time I remembered it wou.. | Miranda July | ||
| 8219028 | Was I like honey thinking it's a small bear, not realizing the bear is just the shape of its bottle? | Miranda July | ||
| 187c39f | I hated my job, but I liked that I could do it | Miranda July | ||
| ea69730 | I slammed the door shut before we had a cold buffet in the front corridor. The shouts grew louder, denied their target. If I had better aim I'd have opened the door and tossed it all right back at them. But with my luck I'd hit the sleeping baby or an innocent old grandmother out for her morning constitution. And then we'd be dragged through the streets for certain. Dread uncurled in the pit of my stomach. "Is that cabbage?" Colin asked, c.. | Alyxandra Harvey | ||
| 819420d | And in her underthings, no less!" Murder was less scandalous than my corset and pantalettes. She sniffed. "Like mother, like daughter." | Alyxandra Harvey | ||
| a2bd7c6 | Hart and Hope,"I muttered."If you're going to name your kids like that, of course they're going to think they live in a comic book." Although I had to admit Hart was handsome,practically debonair. His hair was threaded with silver and freakishly messy."Okay, he's totally got that yummy secret agent thing going on." Nicholas scowled at me. I didn't have to turn my head to look at him to feel his eyes burning" | Alyxandra Harvey | ||
| 8c84ade | Traveling all alone,are you?" One of them asked with what could be described only as a leer worthy of any penny dreadful. "Let me pass," I demanded. Where the devil was everyone? "There's a toll,love," he insisted. "Didn't you know?" We were well hidden by the luggage and a shroud of steam,thick as London fog. The third boy looked uncomfortable, as if he wanted to stop his companions but didn't know how. Fat lot of good his squirming would .. | Alyxandra Harvey | ||
| f15abeb | I turned my attention back to the tal, handsome footman who was waiting patiently for me to take his hand and descend out of the plush carriage. Colin looked at me blandly. I knew perfectly well that he was remembering last spring when I stumbled out of a hired hack and sprawled, rather spectacularly, into a muddy puddle. | Alyxandra Harvey | ||
| 2895d61 | By the time that adorable steak and I had become one flesh I could have taken on the whole Valmy clan singlehanded. | Mary Stewart | ||
| e3500e5 | I long to look at my holiday season with eyes that see the Christ in Christmas. | christmas inspirational | Ann Marie Stewart | |
| 7d33484 | Thunder sounded, very near, and the child woke. | Donna Woolfolk Cross | ||
| 2ebd580 | Why the woman is better...though she was created second she was made from Adam's side whole Adam was made from common clay. Woman should be preferred to man because Eve was created inside Paradise, but Adam was created outside. As for will, woman should be considered superior to man-for Eve ate of the apple for the love of knowledge and learning, but Adam ate of it merely because she asked him. | Donna Woolfolk Cross | ||
| 31a565f | What is life? The joy of the blessed, the sorrow of the sad, and a search for death. And what is death? An inevitable happening, an uncertain pilgrimage, the tears of the living, the thief of man. | Donna Woolfolk Cross | ||
| f40196a | This private estate was far enough away from the explosion so that its bamboos, pines, laurel, and maples were still alive, and the green place invited refugees--partly because they believed that if the Americans came back, they would bomb only buildings; partly because the foliage seemed a center of coolness and life, and the estate's exquisitely precise rock gardens, with their quiet pools and arching bridges, were very Japanese, normal, .. | bomb explosion foliage hide hiroshima japan war | John Hersey | |
| fa63297 | I thought of God as being able to talk big and write *very* small. | religion | John Hersey | |
| 4422308 | It was a ridiculous question. Did I _love_ Char? Did I feel about Char the same way I feel about the Beatles, string instruments in pop songs, the way Little Anthony sang high notes, the way Jerry Lee Lewis played piano? | Leila Sales | ||
| 35315e2 | For here now is the age of iron. Never by daytime will there be an end to hard work and pain, nor in the night to weariness, when the gods will send anxieties to trouble us. | Hesiod | ||
| 5978935 | So you, the kings, you too must reflect upon this punishment, because the immortals are here in the midst of manking, observing those who do not hold the gods in awe...but grind each other down with crooked judgements | Hesiod | ||
| 2fe2f35 | I mean you well, Perses, you great idiot, and I will tell you. Look, badness is easy to have, you can take it by handfuls without effort. The road that way is smooth and starts here beside you. But between us and virtue the immortals have put what will make us sweat. The road to virtue is long and goes steep up hill, hard climbing at first, but the last of it, when you get to the summit (if you get there) is easy going after the hard part. | Hesiod | ||
| 31467b6 | Once, in his first term, Cartwright had been bold enough to ask him why he was clever, what exercises he did to keep his brain fit. Healey had laughed. "It's memory, Cartwright, old dear. Memory, the mother of the Muses... at least that's what thingummy said." "Who?" "You know, what's his name, Greek poet chap. Wrote the Theogony... what he called? Begins with an 'H'." "Homer?" "No, dear. Not Homer, the other one. No, it's gone. Anyway. M.. | intelligence memory | Stephen Fry | |
| 7775ec7 | Casement quoted an African proverb: "A man doesn't go among thorns unless a snake's after him--or he's after a snake." He added, "I'm after a snake and please God I'll scotch it." | Adam Hochschild | ||
| b31b5cb | Today we are less likely to speak of humanitarianism, with its overtones of paternalistic generosity, and more likely to speak of human rights. The basic freedoms in life are not seen as gifts to be doled out by benevolent well-wishers, but as Casement said at his trial, as those rights to which all human beings are entitled from birth. It is this spirit which underlies organizations like Amnesty International, with its belief that putting .. | humanitarianism paternalism | Adam Hochschild | |
| 8acf4ad | When Leopold wrote that the precise frontiers of the new state or states would be defined later, [German Chancellor] Bismarck said to an aide, "His Majesty displays the pretensions and naive selfishness of an Italian who considers that his charm and good looks will enable him to get away with anything." | Adam Hochschild | ||
| 9b38506 | If someone is counting on children to bring them peace of mind, self-confidence, or a steady sense of happiness, they are in for a bad shock. What children do is complicate, implicate, give plot lines to the story, color to the picture, darken everything, bring fear as never before, suggest the holy, explain the ferocity of the human mind, undo or redo some of the past while casting shadows into the future. There is no boredom with children.. | Esther Perel | ||
| 35b0e0f | In our consumer culture, we always want the next best thing: the latest, the newest, the youngest. Failing that, we at least want more: more intensity, more variety, more stimulation. We seek instant gratification and are increasingly intolerant of any frustration. Nowhere are we encouraged to be satisfied with what we have, to think, "this is good. This is enough." | modern-life more | Esther Perel | |
| 1175c08 | Love is an exercise in selective perception, even a delicious deception as well, though who cares about that in the beginning? | Esther Perel | ||
| b8d0b42 | The smaller we feel in the world, the more we need to shine in the eyes of our partner. | partner relationships | Esther Perel | |
| d322c4c | It is always astonishing how love can strike. No context is love-proof, no convention or commitment impervious. Even a lifestyle which is perfectly insulated, where the personality is controlled, all the days ordered and all actions in sequence, can to its own dismay find that an unexpected spark has landed; it begins to smolder until it is finally unquenchable. The force of Eros always brings disturbance; in the concealed terrain of the hu.. | Esther Perel | ||
| abdae94 | The ad does not say "Buy this!"; it says, "Be assured that if you buy and display this product, others are being well trained to feel ugly and inferior in your presence, just as you feel ugly and inferior compared with this goddess." | Geoffrey Miller | ||
| 5de8e63 | Thus, all ads effectively have two audiences: potential product buyers, and potential product viewers who will credit the product owners with various desirable traits. | Geoffrey Miller |