prize

Is there no context for our lives? No song, no literature, no poem full of vitamins, no history connected to experience that you can pass along to help us start strong? You are an adult. The old one, the wise one. Stop thinking about saving your face. Think of our lives and tell us your particularized world. Make up a story. Narrative is radical, creating us at the very moment it is being created. We will not blame you if your reach exceeds your grasp; if love so ignites your words they go down in flames and nothing is left but their scald. Or if, with the reticence of a surgeon's hands, your words suture only the places where blood might flow. We know you can never do it properly - once and for all. Passion is never enough; neither is skill. But try. For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don't tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief s wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear's caul. You, old woman, blessed with blindness, can speak the language that tells us what only language can: how to see without pictures. Language alone protects us from the scariness of things with no names. Language alone is meditation.

Honor is a fool's prize. Glory is of no use to the dead.

In any game, the game itself is the prize, no matter who wins, ultimately both lose the game.

Nothing is free even in Freetown. You must pay a price to get a prize.

A real treasure becomes such only after it's been desperately sought after.

Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it and it has not changed except to become more needed. The skalds, the bards, the writers are not separate and exclusive. From the beginning, their functions, their duties, and their responsibilities have been decreed by our species... the writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit - for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.

The pursuit of joy in God is not optional. It is not an __xtra_ that a person might grow into after he comes to faith. It is not simply a way to __nhance_ your walk with the Lord. Until your heart has hit upon this pursuit, your __aith_ cannot please God. It is not saving faith. Saving faith is the confidence that if you sell all you have and forsake all sinful pleasures, the hidden treasure of holy joy will satisfy your deepest desires. Saving faith is the heartfelt conviction not only that Christ is reliable, but also that He is desirable. It is the confidence that He will come through with His promises and that what He promises is more to be desired than all the world.

Every dream has a price for its prize. I hope you are willing to pay for yours?

You know those giant stuffed-animal prizes at the carnival? The kind practically nobody wins, except the lucky few? I've never won one.""Yeah. I've never won one, either.""Alex was my giant prize. I hated you for taking him away," she admits.I shrug. "Yeah, well, stop hating me. I don't have him, either.""I don't hate you anymore," she says. "I've moved on."I swallow and then say, "Me, too."Carmen chuckles. Then, just as she walks out of the room, I hear her mumble, "Alex sure as hell hasn't.