It was unlikely that anyone had ever heard a black person sing country music.
I am apt to be harsh in my secret judgments of others, seeing them as defective because they are not enough like me.
The prospect of a long day at the beach makes me panic. There is no harder work I can think of than taking myself off to somewhere pleasant, where I am forced to stay for hours and 'have fun'.
Most good essays are conversations with yourself - not just your decided thoughts but your dilemmas.
Doubt is my boon companion, the faithful St. Bernard ever at my side. Whether writing essays or just going about daily life, I am constantly second-guessing myself. My mind is filled with 'yes, buts,' 'so whats?' and other skeptical rejoinders. I am forever monitoring myself for traces of folly, insensitivity, arrogance, false humility, cruelty, stupidity, immaturity and, guess what, I keep finding examples. Age has not made me wiser, except maybe in retrospect.
The essay must be artistically rendered: You must keep the reader engaged, whether with wit, conflict, mischief, andor yes, with honesty.
In new work, we need to see the shadow, however faint, of previous literary effort.
The answer is that we don't choose our freaks, they choose us.
Artemis Fowl grinned right back at him and pointed his index finger to the sky. . . from the tip of this finger sprang a small blue spark that exploded like a tiny firework. “I know magic can be stolen,” said Artemis. “Because I stole some myself.
Even the most solid of things, and the most real, the best-loved and the well-known, are only hand shadows on the wall. Empty space and points of light.
Let us be bold. Let us be brave. Let us be together.