There comes an hour when protest no longer suffices; after philosophy there must be action; the strong hand finishes what the idea has sketched.

The mythology serves purposes darker than sentiment, nothing more so than the currently popular, and arrantly nonsensical, assertion that Lee freed his inherited slaves in 1862 before the war was over...

The entire pre-Columbian literature of Mexico, a vast library of tens of thousands of codices, was carefully and systematically destroyed by the priests and friars who followed in the wake of the conq...

That’s a stupid name! Whirly-gig is much better, I think. Who in their rightmind would point at this thing and say, ‘I’m going to fly in my Model-A1’.

Take him away. Prepare a feast. Forget nothing. My crown: the golden cutlery. The poison bottles; and the fumes; the wreaths of ivy and the bloody joints; the chains; the bowl of nettles; the spices;...

Richard Nixon had made a fatal error in ignoring the politico-meteorological dimension when he announced the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia on April 30, 1970. The invasion of Laos, on the...

On my desk is an appeal from the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia. It asks me to become a sponsor and donor of this soon-to-be-opened institution, while an accompanying leafl...

Nothing, I said. I’m just… I couldn’t finish the sentence, didn’t know how to. I’m just very, very fond of you.

I’ve heard that when you’re in a life-or-death situation, like a car accident or a gunfight, all your senses shoot up to almost superhuman level, everything slows down, and you’re hyper-aware of what’...

It’s not possible to live twenty-four hours a day soaked in the immediate awareness of one’s sex. Gendered self-consciousness has, mercifully, a flickering nature.

It was a map. A really crudely drawn map of trees, mountains that looked like upside-down Vs, and stick people. Apparently, drawing was not one of Athena's skills.

Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it—that no substitute can do your thinking—that the vilest form of self-abaseme...

In this world there comes a time when the most humble of men, if he keeps his eyes open, can take his revenge on the most powerful.

I'm not young. I've never had any youth.

I think it's obvious if you're wanted here or not.Daemon, hissed Dee, her cheeks red. She turned to me, tears in her eyes. He's not being serious.Are you being serious, Daemon? Ash turned in his lap,...

I often stood in front of the mirror alone, wondering how ugly a person could get.

His ruby red rimmed moist eyes were two glasses of cranberry. He wore a cashmere sweater the color of Earl Grey tea...

Here beyond men's judgments all covenants were brittle.

He let her do it, then looked around for his fingers. There they were, curled like a bloody quotation mark on the lead. He laughed.

Harry, you wonderful boy, you brave, brave man.