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we accept fictions as fictions, as things that might be true in their world, if not quite in ours.

The town stood witness to her fall As she crashed to the earth Exposed and utterly vulnerable Her secret lives, lies and truths Stained her skin and lay in mounds at her feet Her foes sat in judgment as a jury, But love came_._._. with gentle hands Love dried her tears Love covered her shame Love sheltered her with compassion Love accepted her anyway Love embraced her Love welcomed her home.

We are all powerless to heal ourselves. Research shows that self-help statements have been found to be ineffective and even harmful by making some people with low self-esteem feel even worse about themselves in the long term.39 As a matter of fact, positive self-statements frequently end up reinforcing and strengthening one__ original negative self-perception they were trying to change.40

I was, as the prophet said, hungering and thirsting for righteousness. I found it at the eternal and material core of Christianity: body, blood, bread, wine, poured out freely, shared by all.

So this is the goal: To make money by increasing net profit, while simultaneously increasing return on investment, and simultaneously increasing cash flow.

When I look back on my life I come to one simple conclusion: there exists an intelligent, loving Presence in the Cosmos that will ultimately have its desire for relationship with us fulfilled; even our arrogant dismissal of its existence will not stop it in its tracks. The Enlightenment's god, the great idol of free will, lies smashed in pieces in its wake. The jealous Presence patiently draws us homeward like some gigantic electromagnetic beam. The Death Star in reverse. This divinity is, I believe, the 'Abba' of Jesus, a transcendence that will not be boxed in by religious misrepresentation...

Starting isn__ like that. Starting something is not an event; it__ a series of events. You decide to walk to Cleveland. So you take a first step in the right direction. That__ starting. You spend the rest of the day walking toward Cleveland, one step at a time, picking your feet up and putting them down. At the end of the day, twenty miles later, you stop at a hotel. And what happens the next morning? Either you quit the project or you start again, walking to Cleveland. In fact, every step is a new beginning. Sure, you__e closer than you were yesterday or last week, but you__e still...

First, love one another very deeply, and don__ be ashamed to express your love openly and often. Also, enjoy one another, and guard zealously your time together so as to enjoy it to the fullest extent.

Some day this war is going to end...

one evangelical scientist who had felt his doubts falling away from him when he was hiking in the mountains and came upon a frozen waterfall__n fact a trinity of a frozen waterfall, with three parts to it. __t that moment, I felt my resistance leave me. And it was a great sense of relief.

For most of the hours of the day__nd most of the months of the year__he sun had the town trapped deep in dust, far out in the chaparral flats, a heaven for snakes and horned toads, roadrunners and stinging lizards, but a hell for pigs and Tennesseans.

Living on purpose means stopping to make sure your actions still match your big goals.

Children can be disgusting, and often they can develop extraordinary talents, but I__ yet to meet any child who can stimulate his carotid arteries inside his ribcage.

the pain of losing a dollar is far more powerful than the pleasure of winning a dollar.

WHEN AUGUSTUS CAME OUT on the porch the blue pigs were eating a rattlesnake__ot a very big one. It had probably just been crawling around looking for shade when it ran into the pigs. They were having a fine tug-of-war with it, and its rattling days were over.

Death, however clearly foretold, still came unexpectedly.

Categories No. 1 and No. 2: Rolled-up trips and three cards to a low straight flush.

Mark my words__ou will come some day to a craggy pass in the channel, where the whole of life__ stream will be broken up into whirl and tumult, foam and noise: either you will be dashed to atoms on crag points, or lifted up and borne on by some master-wave into a calmer current__s I am now.