The best poems were like little vessels that carry messages that can’t be transported in any other way; miniature worlds like tiny paintings or Faberge eggs.
So can you say life is senseless and cruel or you can make a stand and try to impose your own meaning and values on it?
Our quest for heroism is awkward. Not the obvious heroism that earns medals and applause but the heroism of daily life. Go to Princeton and you’re an educational hero; run a marathon and you’re an ath...
I noticed how the band members watched her and how she made them smile and I realized that she was the kind of person who changed the feeling in a room, so that others suddenly feel that they are in t...
Maybe other people are like mirrors that we see ourselves in; versions of ourselves that vary dramatically depending on the particular cut of glass.
You can't expect people to dwell on the fact that they'll ultimately lose everything they have and love.Why not? It might make them think about what really matters.What does really matter? I asked.Hav...
Without art; without paintings, books, sculpture and music, the human soul would be quite impenetrable, don’t you think?
I spent all day wandering up and down the hallways, staring at the Mona Lisa and Canova’s 'Psyche and Cupid' and the 'Venus de Milo' and Caravaggio’s 'The Death of the Virgin' and hundreds of other wo...
I see her again: her face wet with tears, her eyes searching mine. Slowly, very slowly, I reach my hands out and trace my fingertips along her skin, first down her neck, so warm and fragile, then acro...
I've known people whose faces rested naturally in a smile and I'm certain their lives were much different because of that.
Maybe our relationships--love--can save us, at least enough so that our lives are finally worthwhile, even with all the rotten misery and dying.
How about some commotion, a stir caused by the spreading news of my imminent demise? If the world would just wince momentarily at my passing. No need for flags at half-mast, but just a flinch, a brief...
That’s the thing about art. It really helps to be unhappy.
Was [her] life really better than most, or did she appreciate it more or just remember it differently? I suspect she remembers it differently, which is really the trick. If you want to age gracefully,...
If love doesn’t triumph, it ought to. For love is the one thing we have that feels more powerful than even death; the only respite from life’s wretched absurdity. The magic of love is not that it cont...
Love is self-explanatory: the right person makes you feel well nigh immortal, vaccinating you with their affections. So long as you remain in their heart you are safe, or better than safe even, for a...
Yesterday I noticed a scent of bark outside that I had not smelled in years. While the bark lingered in my nose, flushing out ancient tree houses and campfires and games of tag and capture the flag, I...
Our lives feel fuller when we can weave them into stories, even if not all the stories are true and even if we are just filibustering, hoping our number won’t be called--so long as we keep talking.
What is it about beauty that intimidates; causing us to kneel somewhere deep inside and pray and wonder just how close we might crawl before being banished from the sanctuary?
There were angels too, some bent with devotion, others standing with heads cast down and hands clasped together, bereft. I thought of [them] and how maybe the important thing is to have somebody griev...
Showing 1 to 20 of 27 results