Nathan David Wilson (born 1978) is an American author of young adult fiction.
The world is R-rated, and no one's checking IDs
Your life is your own, your glory is your glory, but you will lose it if you keep it for yourself. Grasp it for the sake of others.
Truth: We are the present. We are now. We are the razor's edge of history. The future flies at us and from that dark blur we shape the past. And the past is forever.
You fainted,' Tom said. Reg coughed. No, I didn't,' he said. 'Women faint. People afraid of needles faint. Men black out.
If God gives you (or makes you) a joke, what are you meant to do in response? (Receive it. Laugh. ) If God gives you an obstacle, what are you meant to do in response? (Receive it. Climb it. Then laugh. ) If God gives you more profound hardship, what are you meant to do in response? (Receive it. Climb it. Then laugh. Exhibit A: His Son. )
The moon was up, painting the world silver, making things look just a little more alive.
Do you dislike your role in the story, your place in the shadow? What complaints do you have that the hobbits could not have heaved at Tolkien? You have been born into a narrative, you have been given freedom. Act, and act well until you reach your final scene.
After a few mouthfuls of moon-flavored air, even the stubbornly drowsy can find themselves wide-eyed. . All the normal noises of life were gone, leaving behind the secretive sounds, the shy sounds, the whispers and conversations of moss disputing with grass over some soft piece of earth, or the hummingbird snoring.
Caves and darkness can't hold you when you die, they can only hold your bones.
Every four years, I'll watch figure skating, but I'm no closer to buying tights.
No place is ever the same tomorrow.
Sometimes standing against evil is more important than defeating it. The greatest heroes stand because it is right to do so, not because they believe they will walk away with their lives. Such selfless courage is a victory in itself.
Narrative living is the beginning of rhetoric.
Marx called religion an opiate, and all too often it is. But philosophy is an anaesthetic, a shot to keep the wonder away.
As long as I'm dealing in honesty, I may as well admit that I have been more influenced (as a person) by my childhood readings of Tolkien and Lewis than I have been by any philosophers I read in college and grad school. The events and characters in Narnia and Middle Earth shaped my ideals, my dreams, my goals. Kant just annoyed me.
When you depart from standard usage, it should be deliberate and not an accidental lapse. Like a poet who breaks the rules of poetry for creative effect, this only works when you know and respect the rule you are breaking. If you have never heard of the rules you are breaking, you have no right to do so, and you are likely to come off like a buffoon or a barbarian. Breaking rules, using slang and archaic language can be effective, but it is just as likely to give you an audience busy with wincing.
What I say is, don't go playing unless you can win. Only sit down to chess with idiots, only kick a dog what's dead already, and don't love a lady unless she loves you first.
In the history of the world there have been lots of onces and lots of times, and every time has had a once upon it. Most people will tell you that the once upon a time happened in a land far, far away, but it really depends on where you are. The once upon a time may have been just outside your back door. It may have been beneath your very feet. It might not have been in a land at all but deep in the sea's belly or bobbing around on its back.
Self-loathing and self-worship can easily be the same thing. You hate the small sack of fluids and resentments that you are, and you would go to any length, and betray anything and anyone, to preserve it.
But God never seems capable of moderation