I've never forgotten him. Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart. I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of goodbye, without looking back even once. The pain is like an axe that chops my heart.

To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud...

Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love.I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of goodbye, without looking back even once. That pain is like an axe that chops at my heart.

You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.

These people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. They should direct their anger at themselves. For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart.

The paths to liberation are numerous, but the bank along the way is always the same, the Bank of Karma, where the liberation account of each of us is credited or debited depending on our actions.

I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always ... so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.

To lose a brother is to lose someone with whom you can share the experience of growing old, who is supposed to bring you a sister-in-law and nieces and nephews, creatures who people the tree of your life and give it new branches. To lose your father is to lose the one whose guidance and help you seek, who supports you like a tree trunk supports its branches. To lose your mother, well, that is like losing the sun above you. It is like losing--I'm sorry, I would rather not go on.

..the most dangerous animal in a zoo is Man.

Slice a pear and you will find that its flesh is incandescent white. It glows with inner light. Those who carry a knife and a pear are never afraid of the dark.

Just beyond the ticket booth Father had painted on a wall in bright red letters the question: DO YOU KNOW WHICH IS THE MOST DANGEROUS ANIMAL IN THE ZOO? An arrow pointed to a small curtain. There were so many eager, curious hands that pulled at the curtain that we had to replace it regularly. Behind it was a mirror.

These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy...walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think, 'Business as usual.' But if they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening.

Even when God seemed to have abandoned me, he was watching. Even when he seemed indifferent to my suffering, he was watching. And when I was beyond all hope of saving, he gave me rest. Then he gave me a sign to continue my journey.

Faith in God is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love - but sometimes it was so hard to love.

Afterwards, when it's all over, you meet God. What do you say to God?

So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can't prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with animals or the story without animals?' Mr. Okamoto: 'That's an interesting question?' Mr. Chiba: 'The story with animals.' Mr. Okamoto: 'Yes. The story with animals is the better story.' Pi Patel: 'Thank you. And so it goes with God.

The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart. Meanwhile, the lot of widows and homeless children is very hard, and it is to their defense, not God's, that the self-righteous should rush.

You might think I lost all hope at that point. I did. And as a result I perked up and felt much better.

If there's only one nation in the sky, shouldn't all passports be valid for it?

Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous possessive love that grabs at what it can.

I was giving up. I would have given up - if a voice hadn't made itself heard in my heart. The voice said "I will not die. I refuse it. I will make it through this nightmare. I will beat the odds, as great as they are. I have survived so far, miraculously. Now I will turn miracle into routine. The amazing will be seen everyday. I will put in all the hard work necessary. Yes, so long as God is with me, I will not die. Amen.

To my mind, faith is like being in the sun. When you are in the sun, can you avoid creating a shadow? Can you shake that area of darkness that clings to you, always shaped like you, as if constantly to remind you of yourself? You can’t. This shadow is doubt. And it goes wherever you go as long as you stay in the sun. And who wouldn’t want to be in the sun?

Atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith, and every word they speak speaks of faith. Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them -- and then they leap.

Why can we throw a question further than we can pull in an answer?

It's a misery peculiar to would-be writers. Your theme is good, as are your sentences. Your characters are so ruddy with life they practically need birth certificates. The plot you've mapped out for them is grand, simple and gripping. You've done your research, gathering the facts; historical, social, climatic culinary, that will give your story its feel of authenticity. The dialogue zips along, crackling with tension. The descriptions burst with color, contrast and telling detail.Really, your story can only be great. But it all adds up to nothing.In spite the obvious, shining promise of it, there comes a moment when you realize that the whisper that has been pestering you all along from the back of your mind is speaking the flat, awful truth: IT WON'T WORK.An element is missing, that spark that brings to life in a real story, regardless of whether the history or the food is right.Your story is emotionally dead, that's the crux of it.The discovery is something soul-destroying, I tell you. It leaves you with an aching hunger.

I challenge anyone to understand Islam, its spirit, and not to love it. It is a beautiful religion of brotherhood and devotion.

Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion to God, are hat wearing Muslims.

It was my first clue that atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith. Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them - and then they leap. I'll be honest about it. It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for awhile. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God, as if Ultimate Reality, as if the sustaining frame of existence, were something weak and helpless. These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy begging for a few paise, walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think, "Business as usual." But if they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening. These people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. They should direct their anger at themselves. For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart. Meanwhile, the lot of widows and homeless children is very hard, and it is to their defense, not God's, that the self-righteous should rush.

I couldn't get Him out of my head. Still can't. I spent three solid days thinking about Him. The more He bothered me, the less I coul forget Him. And the more I learned about Him, the less I wanted to leave Him.

Religion is more than rite and ritual.

Christianity is a religion in a rush.

To me, religion is about our dignity, not our depravity.

When I corrected her, I told her that in fact she was not so wrong; that Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion to God, are hat-wearing Muslims.

God is universal," spluttered the priest.The imam nodded strong approval. "There is only one God.""And with their one god Muslims are always causing troubles and provoking riots. The proof of how bad Islam is, is how uncivilized Muslims are,: pronounced the pandit."Says the slave-driver of the cast system," huffed the imam. "Hindus enslave people and worship dressed-up dolls.""They are golden calf lovers. They kneel before the cows," the priest chimed in."While Christians kneel before a white man! They are flunkies of a foreign god. They are nightmare of all nonwhite people.

He seems to be attracting religions the way a dog attracts fleas.

We are all born like Catholics . . . in limbo, without religion.

I don't mean to defend zoos. Close them all down if you want (and let us hope that what wildlife remains can survive in what is left of the natural world). I know zoos are no longer in people's good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusion about freedom plague them both.

Scientists are a friendly, atheistic, hard-working, beer-drinking lot whose minds are preoccupied with sex, chess and baseball when they are not preoccupied with science.

The reason death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity- its envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can.

I never had problems with my fellow scientists. Scientists are a friendly, atheistic, hard-working, beer-drinking lot whose minds are preoccupied with sex, chess and baseball when they are not preoccupied with science.

Just as music is noise that makes sense, a painting is colour that makes sense, so a story is life that makes sense.

Books, like people, can't be reduced to the cost of the materials with which they were made. Books, like people, become unique and precious once you get to know them.

You might have noticed that I have been sending you used books. I have done this not to save money, but to make a point which is that a used book, unlike a used car, hasn't lost any of its initial value. A good story rolls of the lot into the hands of its new reader as smoothly as the day it was written. And there's another reason for these used paperbacks that never cost much even when new; I like the idea of holding a book that someone else has held, of eyes running over lines that have already seen the light of other eyes. That, in one image, is the community of readers, is the communion of literature.

I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy.

I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, show no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy. Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot soldier. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. You become anxious. Reason comes to do battle for you. You are reassured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons technology. But, to your amazement, despite superior tactics and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weakening, wavering. Your anxiety becomes dread.Fear next turns fully to your body, which is already aware that something terribly wrong is going on. Already your lungs have flown away like a bird and your guts have slithered away like a snake. Now your tongue drops dear like an opossum, while your jaw begins to gallop on the spot. Your ears go deaf. Your muscles begin to shiver as if they had malaria and your knees to shake as though they were dancing. Your heart strains too hard, while your sphincter relaxes too much. And so with the rest of your body. Every part of you, in the manner most suited to it, falls apart. Only your eyes work well. They always pay proper attention to fear.Quickly you make rash decisions. You dismiss your allies: hope and trust. There, you’ve defeated yourself. Fear, which is but an impression, has triumphed over you.The matter is difficult to put into words. For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, your open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.

I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I now. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy. Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot soldier. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. You become anxious. Reason comes to do battle for you. You are reassured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons technology. But, to your amazement, despite superior tactics and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weakening, wavering. Your anxiety becomes dread.

If we, citizens, do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams.

I knew very little about the religion. [Christianity] It had a reputation for few gods and great violence. But good schools.

They never look very big on the table, the bodies. It's built to accommodate the largest frames, there's that. And they're naked. But it's something else. That parcel of the being called the soul-weighing twenty-one grams, according to the experiments of the American doctor Duncan MacDougall-takes up a surprising amount of space, like aloud voice. In its absence, the body seems to shrink

Like punk rock, like Jackson Pollock, like Jack Kerouac, it was truly human, a mix of perfect beauty and cathartic error.

To her, writing is making stock and reading is sipping broth, but only the spoken word is the full roasted chicken.

Let that be a reminder to you that the past is one thing, but what we make of it, the conclusions we draw, is another. History can be many things, depending on how we read it, just as the future can be many things, depending on how we live it. There is no inevitability to any historical occurrence, only what people will allow to take place. And it is by dreaming first that we get to new realities.

Socially inferior animals are the ones that make the most strenuous, resourceful efforts to get to know their keepers. They prove to be the ones most faithful to them…it is a fact commonly known in the trade.

Nature can put on a thrilling show. The stage is vast, the lighting is dramatic, the extras are innumerable, and the budget for special effects is absolutely unlimited.

How does one say in the jargon of musicology that my sould was pulled out of me and thrown up in the air, to be tossed about by the music. How does one say that I breathed, that I existed, in harmony with the ups and downs of those notes. What kind of notes both elevate and cast down, exalt and crush?

The world isn't just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no?Doesn't that make life a story?

I thought I knew not only her habits but also her limits. This display of ferocity, of savage courage, made me realize that I was wrong. All my life I had known only a part of her.

Henry had written a novel because there was a hole in him that needed filling, a question that needed answering, a patch of canvas that needed painting—that blend of anxiety, curiosity and joy that is at the origin of art—and he had filled the hole, answered the question, splashed colour on the canvas, all done for himself, because he had to. Then complete strangers told him that his book had filled a hole in them, had answered a question, had brought colour to their lives. The comfort of strangers, be it a smile, a pat on the shoulder or a word of praise, is truly a comfort.

You see, the penis, it's so graceless, wouldn't you agree? When it's cold and shrivelled up, it looks like W.H. Auden in his old age; when it's hot, it flops and dangles about in a ridiculous way; when it's excited, it looks so pained and earnest you'd think it was going to burst into tears. And the scrotum! To think that something so vital to the survival of the species, fully responsible for 50 per cent of the ingredients--though none of the work--should hang freely from the body in a tiny, defenceless bag of skin. One whack, one bite, one paw-scratch--and it's just the right level, too, for your average animal, a dog, a lion, a sabre-tooth tiger--and that's it, end of story. Don't you think it should get better protection? Behind some bone, for example, like us? What could be better than our nicely tapered entrance? It's discreet and stylish, everything is cleverly and compactly encased in the body, with nothing hanging out within easy reach of a closing subway door, there's a neat triangle of hair above it, like a road sign, should you lose your way--it's perfect. The penis is just such a lousy design. It's pre-Scandinavian. Pre-Bauhaus, even.

A story is a wedding in which we listeners are the groom watching the bride coming up the aisle. It is together, in an act of imaginary consummation, that the story is born. This act wholly involves us, as any marriage would, and just as no marriage is exactly the same as another, so each of us interprets a story differently, feels for it differently. A story calls upon us...as individuals-and we like that. Stories benefit the human mind.

If you stumble about believability, what are you living for? Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?

Don't you bully me with your politeness! Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?

Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer.

If you stumble at mere believability, what are you living for? Isn't love hard to believe? Don't you bully me with your politeness! Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?

A story is a wedding in which we listeners are the groom watching the bride coming up the aisle. It is together, in an act of imaginary consummation, that the story is born. This act wholly involves us, as any marriage would, and just as no marriage is exactly the same as another, so each of us interprets a story differently, feels for it differently.

Just as music is noise that makes sense, a painting is color that makes sense, so a story is life that makes sense.

Some of us give up on life with only a resigned sigh. Others fight a little, then lose hope. Still others-and I am one of those-never give up. We fight and fight and fight. We fight no matter the cost of battle, the losses we take, the improbability of success. We fight to the very end. It's not a question of courage. It's something constitutional, an inability to let go.

I suppose in the end the whole of life becomes an act of letting go. But what always hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye.

I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent.

We are random animals. That is who we are, and we have only ourselves, nothing more--there is no greater relationship.

What his uncle does not understand is that in walking backwards, his back to the world, his back to God, he is not grieving. He is objecting. Because when everything cherished by you in life has been taken away, what else is there to do but object?

Grief is a disease. We were riddled with its pockmarks, tormented by its fevers, broken by its blows. It ate at us like maggots, attacked us like lice- we scratched ourselves to the edge of madness. In the process we became as withered as crickets, as tired as old dogs.

The sad fact is there are no natural deaths, despite what doctors say. Every death is felt by someone as a murder, the unjust taking of a loved being. And even the luckiest of us will encounter at least one murder in our own lives: our own. It is our fate. We all live a murder mystery of which we are the victim.

When you've suffered a great deal in life, each additional pain is both unbearable and trifling.

If God on the Cross is God shamming a human tragedy, it turns the Passion of Christ into the Farce of Christ. The death of the Son must be real. Father Martin assured me it was. But once a dead God, always a dead God, even resurrected. The Son must have the taste for death forever in His mouth. The Trinity must be tainted by it; there must be a certain stench at the right hand of God the Father. The horror must be real. Why would God wish that upon Himself? Why not leave death to the mortals? Why make dirty what is beautiful, spoil what is perfect? Love. That was Father Martin's answer.

If literature does one thing, it makes you more empathetic by making you live other lives and feel the pain of others. Ideologues don't feel the pain of others because they haven't imaginatively got under their skins.

Ageing is not easy, Sennhora Castro. It's a terrible, incurable pathology. And great love is another pathology. It starts well. It's a most desirable disease. One wouldn't want to do without it. It's like yeast that corrupts the juice of grapes. One loves, one loves, one persists in loving-the incubation period can be very long- and then, with death, comes the heart break. Love must always meet its unwanted end.

Time and sunshine healed a sore, but the process was slow, and new boils appeared if I didn't stay dry.

For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like a gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.

For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart.

When the course of experience made me see that there is no saviour and no special grace, no remission beyond the human, that pain is to be endured and fades, if it fades, only with time, then God became nothing to me but a dyslexic dog, with neither bark nor bite.

My feelings can perhaps be imagined, but they can hardly be described.

Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can get.

The holy word is story, and story is the holy word.

It seems to be a law of human nature that those who live by the sea are suspiciousof swimmers, just as those who live in the mountains are suspicious of mountainclimbers.

Only death consistently excites your emotions, whether contemplating when life is safe and stale, or fleeing it when life is threatened and precious

There are animals we haven't stopped by. Don't think they're harmless. Life will defend itself no matter how small it is.

My gratitude to him is as boundless as the Pacific ocean.

Stories--individual stories, family stories, national stories--are what stitch together the disparate elements of human existence into a coherent whole. We are story animals.

Doesn't the telling of something always become a story?

A house is a compressed territory where our basic needs can be fulfilled close by and safely.

My developing sense was that the foundation of a story is an emotional foundation. If a story does not work emotionally, it does not work at all.

What is the purpose of reason, Richard Parker? Is it no more than to shine at practicalities - the getting of food, clothing and shelter? Why can't reason give greater answers? Why can we throw a question further than we can pull in an answer? Why such a vast net of there's so little fish to catch?

All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways. This madness can be saving; it is part and parcel of the ability to adapt. Without it, no species would survive.

Survival starts by paying attention to what is close at hand and immediate. To look out with idle hope is tantamount to dreaming one's life away.

I wept like a child. It was not because I was overcome at having survived my ordeal, though I was. Nor was it the presence of my brothers and sisters, though that too was very moving. I was weeping because ....fill in the blank with whatever/whoever helped you survive... had left me so unceremoniously.

Mockery be damned, my urine looked delicious.

Come aboard if your destination is oblivion - it should be our next stop.

The obsession with putting ourselves at the centre of everything is the bane not only of theologians but also of zoologists.

Despair was a heavy blackness that let no light in or out. It was a hell beyond expression.

It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse. That bungled goodbye hurts me to this day.

As for hearing, the sloth is not so much deaf as uninterested in sound.

The indifference of the many, combined with the active hatred of the few, has sealed the fate of animals.

The three-toed sloth lives a peaceful, vegetarian life in perfect harmony with its environment. A good-natured smile is forever on its lips...I have seen that smile with my own eyes. I am not one given to projecting human traits and emotions onto animals, but many a time during that month in Brazil, looking up at a sloth in repose, I felt I was in the presence of upside-down yogis deep in meditation or hermits deep in prayer, wise beings whose intense imaginative lives were beyond the reach of scientific probing.

I wish I could convey the perfection of a seal slipping into water or a spider monkey swinging from point to point or a lion merely turning its head. But language founders in such seas. Better to picture it in your head if you want to feel it...I spent more hours than I can count a quiet witness to the highly mannered, manifold expressions of life that grace our planet. It is something so bright, loud, weird and delicate as to stupefy the senses.

The reason death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity--it's envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can.

The individual soul touches upon the world soul like a well reaches for the water table. That which sustains the universe beyond thought and language, and that which is at the core of us and struggles for expression, is the same thing. The finite within the infinite, the infinite within the finite.

In my youth, it was my good luck to have a few good teachers, men and women, who came into my head and lit a match.

If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

I'll be honest about it. It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

It's not atheists who get stuck in my caw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for awhile. We all must pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we... But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as means of transportation.

I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know it. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy. Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot soldier. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. You become anxious. Reason comes to do battle for you. You are reassured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons technology. But, to your amazement, despite superior tactics and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weakening, wavering. Your anxiety becomes dread.

But it was hard, oh, it was hard. Faith in God is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love--but sometimes it was so hard to love. Sometimes my heart was sinking so fast with anger, desolation, and weariness, I was afraid it would sink to the very bottom of the Pacific and I would not be able to lift it back up.

When your own life is threatened, your sense of empathy is blunted by a terrible, selfish hunger for survival.

At moments of wonder, it is easy to avoid small thinking, to entertain thoughts that span the universe, that capture both thunder and tinkle, thick and thin, the near and the far.

All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways.

All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in a strange, sometimes inexplicable ways.

I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life.

I did not grasp all these details - and many more - right away. They came to my notice with time and as a result of necessity. I would be in the direst of dire straits, facing a bleak future, when some small thing, some detail, would transform itself and appear in my mind in a new light. It would no longer be the small thing it was before, but the most important thing in the world, the thing that would save my life. This happened time and again. How true it is that necessity is the mother of invention, how very true.

There are many ways in which life's little candle can be snuffed out. A cold wind pursues us all.

The reason death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity - it's envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud .

The reason death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity - it's envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can.

As for fame, fame felt like nothing. Fame was not a sensation like love or hunger or loneliness, welling from within and invisible to the outside eye. It was rather entirely external, coming from the minds of others. It existed in the way people looked at him or behaved towards him. In that, being famous was no different from being gay, or Jewish, or from a visible minority: you are who you are, and then people project onto you some notion they have.

...he found it where he should have looked first, on the Internet, which is a net indeed, one that can be cast further than the eye can see and be retrieved no matter how heavy the hall, its magical mesh never breaking under the strain but always bringing in the most amazing catch.

Under the pathologist's microscope, life and death fight in an illuminated circle in a sort of cellular bullfight. The pathologist's job is to find the bull among the matador cells

Trees were not hard, irritable things, but discreetly orgasmic beings moaning at a level too deep for our brutish ears. And flowers were quick explosive orgasms, like making love in the shower.

So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can't prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with animals or the story without animals?

A plain is what a mountain aims to be: the closest you can come to being in outer space while yet having your feet on this planet.

The reason death sticks so closely to life isn’t biological necessity – it’s envy.

Life and death live and die in exactly the same spot, the body.

And so, when she heard if Hare Krishnas, she didn't hear right. She heard "Hairless Christians", and that is what they were to her for many years. When I corrected her, I told her in fact she was not so wrong; that Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians in their devotion to God, are hat-wearing Muslims.