Never acknowledging that the general culture is often stupid or evil and would vote out God in favor of the devil if he fed them back their hate and fear in a way that made them feel righteous.
I decided that many of Bear’s stories and comments shared a general drift. They advised against fearing all of creation. But not because it is always benign, for it is not. It will, with certainty, co...
I consider it a mutual duty, that we owe to each other, to communicate in a spirit of the utmost frankness and candor. Let it ever be done with unlocked hearts.
He had been alone in the world and empty for so long. But she filled him full, and so he believed everything that had been taken out of him might have been for a purpose. To clear space for something...
Than appreciating the calm voice of Charleston during an evening walk along the Battery with Fort Sumter off in the distance, the great white houses at one’s back, palmettos rattling their leaves in a...
Words from a tongue ten thousand years old. Words for gold and silver, brass and iron. The names of the gods that the king and his men and whores praise above all. Things you can weigh on a scale or m...
We all reach a point where we would like to draw a line across time and declare everything on the far side null. Shed our past life like a pair of wet and muddy trousers, just roll their heavy clingin...
There was nothing about her story remarkable other than that it was her life.
Subtract everything inessential from America and what's left? Geography and political philosophy, V says. The Declaration of Independence and Constitution. The Federalist Papers. --I'd say geography a...
Nothing changes what already happened. It will always have happened. You either let it break you down or you don't.
No looking back. Life goes one way only, and whatever opinions you hold about the past have nothing to do with anything but your own damn weakness. Nothing changes what already happened. It will alway...
Lily's spirit neediness expressed itself raw as a kerosene blaze in the material world.
In the end, he said he judged the Bible to be a sound book. Nevertheless,
He said, I've been coming for you on a hard road. I'm never letting you go. Never.
A deep belief that your moment in time is the pinnacle, the only standard of judgment extending from the creation of light until the black apocalypse, that what you believe right now is eternal truth...
—Please, V says. Scribble. James opens his notebook and writes, The island was a separate place, situated partway between America and the moon. Some clear nights out with the telescope—moon full or gi...
—Oh, Mary said, life is mostly just what happens. Choice or chance or fate, gods or not. Like it or not. Things happen, we do what we think is in our best interests or just convenient, and then we liv...
Wishing you’d simply paused, taken a long, deep breath. Not allowed the personal moment and the pattern of your family and your stupid culture to shove you two-handed from behind, forcing you to stumb...
Had that to understand each other by, though otherwise they could not have been more alien to each other. In short
Deep belief that your moment in time is the pinnacle, the only standard of judgment extending from the creation of light until the black apocalypse, that what you believe right now is eternal truth be...