People were so naive about plants, Ellie thought. They just chose plants for appearance, as they would choose a picture for the wall. It never occurred to them that plants were actually living things,...
Human intelligence was more trouble than it was worth. It was more destructive than creative, more confusing than revealing, more discouraging than satisfying, more spiteful than charitable.
Some genealogies claimed to be able to trace the Maclean ancestry even further back, going as far as Julius Caesar, and, in some cases, admittedly more tendentiously, to the ancient Celtic god of the...
The danger, of course, is that we spend time imagining that we would be happier elsewhere, and forget to cultivate happiness where fate has placed us.
Commissioner Harris at the far end stared along the mad pathway. This was his first child and it had already become a murderer.
But you can certainly take fifteen years off everything these days." She paused. "But you can't take height off a mountain.
Geniuses never pay attention.
of being linked with each other, we have every temptation to be selfish and unmoved by others and by their plight. Our towns, our cities, our places become no more than hotels, with all that lack of...
that weddings are far more than marriage ceremonies; we know that they are occasions for family stock-taking and catharsis; that
...But although the rules are vagueAnd widely disregarded nowSome precepts remain: live with love - That is a rule we all can understand;Forgive those who need forgiveness,Which I think is everybody,...
To be cut down to size is good for all of us, but particularly so for those who forget how transient are our cultures and institutions, how pointless and cruel our divisions, how vain our claims to...
Irene gasped. Have you taken leave of your senses, Stuart? she hissed. Have you?Stuart closed his eyes.No, he said. Au contraire. It was strong language for the Edinburgh New Town, but he had to say...
The forges of friendship, thought Angus, may be busy ones, but their dorrs are always open.
You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity. Earth has survived everything in its time. It will certainly survive us. To the earth...a million years is nothing. This planet lives...
Owning and maintaining a fraud had a way of gradually demoralizing one.
They believed that prediction was just a function of keeping track of things. If you knew enough, you could predict anything. That's been cherished scientific belief since Newton.'And?'Chaos theory...
How much older can you be at your age? A half minute before that you were stepping into high school, and an unhooked brassiere was as close as you ever hoped to get to Paradise. Only a fifth of a...
His sixth year, it seemed to him, had lasted a remarkably long time and there were points at which he frankly wondered whether he would ever turn seven. But now it was the night before his birthday,...
The rock, for its part, is not even aware of our existence because we are alive for only a brief instant of its lifespan. To it, we are like flashes in the dark.
Discovery, they believe, is inevitable. So they just try to do it first. That's the game in science.
The purpose of history is to explain the present - to say why the world around us is the way it is. History tells us what is important in our world, and how it came to be. It tells us what is to be...
Grant knew that people could not imagine geological time. Human life was lived on another scale of time entirely. An apple turned brown in a few minutes. Silverware turned black in a few days. A...
Raising children is, in a sense, the reason the society exists in the first place. It's the most important thing that happens, and it's the culmination of all the tools and language and social...
Morrie likes the nickname. Coach, he says. All right, I'll be your coach. And you can be my player. You can play all the lovely parts of life that I'm too old for now.
No buts, Bertie. If you don't keep your promise then you'll get into serious trouble. Big time. You could go to prison, and then what? And there's God too. God watches these things and if he sees you...
She brought a chair into the room and placed it alongside the top of his bed. Then she held his hand as he drifted off to sleep. It was so small in her own hand, and it felt warm and dry. She pressed...
the finding of a cargo of whisky was, in a sense, like the finding by the Israelites of manna in the wilderness. And
If you hold back on the emotions - if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them - you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're...
Do what the Buddhists do. Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks. Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?
In other centuries, human beings wanted to be saved, or improved, or freed, or educated. But in our century, they want to be entertained. The great fear is not of disease or death, but of boredom. A...
And it was not surprising, perhaps, that he should feel it-this little boy who felt things so deeply; for we all feel that about our friends; we all feel that about those around whom we might put an...
Professor Johnston often said that if you didn't know history, you didn't know anything. You were a leaf that didn't know it was part of a tree.
The heart doesn't know it's expanding with compassion anymore than a hawk spreading its swings knows it's being a hawk. Nor does someone acting out of love often realize they are being kind.
The Red Lion was a four-ale bar with a handful of lowbrowed sons of toil who looked as though they...
What could you do? Major Major asked himself again. What could you do with a man who looked you...
If I turned towards books, it was because they were the only sanctuary I knew, one I needed in order...
We all had to pay, but not for the crimes we were accused of. There were other scores to settle.
Hope for some means its loss for others; when the hopeless regain some hope, those in power--the...
It isn't even good grammar. What the hell does it mean when they disappear somebody?
Read me back the last line. 'Read me back the last line,' read back the corporal who could take...
Why are they going to disappear him? I don't know. It doesn't make sense. It isn't even good...
Keep in mind that when we talk of a great painting we are not really talking about anything great....