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Reject the tyranny of picked. Pick yourself.

Maybe that's why people have friends at all. Not because they like them so much but because they don't make them feel so much worse.

We begin to resemble what we focus on. If we devote our lives to our jobs, then we mentally take the office to our daughter__ lacrosse game.

Soul ties. The thing that can make you hear an old-school slow jam and think of somebody you haven__ seen in years. Soul ties. The thing that makes old people who__e been together for years finish each other__ sentences. Don__ you wish mama had told you when you were young that, when you lie with someone, you lie not just with her body but also with her soul? And whatever condition the other person__ soul is in, you are guaranteed to take a piece with you__hether you want to or not. Instead of being amazed at her booty, you should have focused on her mind.

I pictured the two of them alone. Perhaps showering together, as Rome and I liked to do. My stomach clenched painfully, amusement forgotten. __ody, will you take me to the nearest clinic? I need someone to dig the knife out of my back. Lexis might need it again. And the good doctor might want to give me a tetanus shot. I think she bled on me._ Stunned silence. I often had that effect.

For Leopardi, unhappy hedonist that he was, what is unknown is always more attractive than what is known; hope and imagination are the only consolations for the disappointments and sorrows of experience. Man therefore projects his desire into infinity and feels pleasure only when he is able to imagine that this pleasure has no end.

It__ a lot harder to pull your head up and ask why.

All great programmers learn the same way. They poke the box. They code something and see what the computer does. They change it and see what the computer does. They repeat the process again and again until they figure out how the box works.

Everyone knew what he was thinking. Certainly there were demons in the world. But they were like Tehlu__ angels. They were like heroes and kings. They belonged in stories. They belonged out there. Taborlin the Great called up fire and lightning to destroy demons. Tehlu broke them in his hands and sent them howling into the nameless void. Your childhood friend didn__ stomp one to death on the road to Baedn-Bryt. It was ridiculous.

My Spanish is limited to burrito and taco,

If that's what you believe the Lord is calling you to do, then you can be confident He'll go ahead of you.

We describe a person without compassion as __eartless,_ and we urge him or her to __ave a heart._ Our deepest hurts we call __eartaches._ Jilted lovers are __rokenhearted._ Courageous soldiers are __ravehearted._ The truly evil are __lack-hearted_ and saints have __earts of gold._ If we need to speak at the most intimate level, we ask for a __eart-to-heart_ talk. __ighthearted_ is how we feel on vacation. And when we love someone as truly as we may, we love __ith all our heart._ But when we lose our passion for life, when a deadness sets in which we cannot...

I fell, as they say. Into love. I practiced saying it, first to myself, in my head. I believed in it. I did. I thought love and I bought it completely. I was excited by my belief but was careful not to let this excitement influence or manipulate the belief in any way. The belief had to be pure. So I said it to her, I love you, and she said it back. And this was our contract. We treated the words seriously and respected that they came with implications.

I don__ know. She was a sweet girl. As sweet as they come. I don__ know why I didn__ love her. It__ something you can__ really control.

I am afraid that I rather give myself away when I explain," said he. "Results without causes are much more impressive.

Cripes, I can__ keep up on this political correct shit. I don__ even know what to call myself. One minute I__ black. Then I__ African American. Then I__ a person of color. Who the hell makes these rules up, anyhow?

A child__ bond to her mother cannot be understated, and my bond with Helen was a ragged, baffling, disheartening, chaotic mess. I felt crazy, often, around my own mother. I grew up questioning what was normal, asking what reality was and wasn__, and not trusting the outcome of different situations. She scared me and I couldn__ predict her behavior, so I was often off-kilter and worried.

God also cheers when we come to him with our wobbling, unsteady prayers. Jesus does not say, __ome to me, all you who have learned how to concentrate in prayer, whose minds no longer wander, and I will give you rest.