I remember him. Jaxton only knew I existed long enough to take the piss out of me. He certainly never liked me.” Roman sighed, giving his side of the story, though it was a slantedone. Only three people knew the real story; him, Jaxton and Ben, and it was far from the tale of bully and victim that Jaxton kept telling people.“Yeah, that's what he said,” Thayer agreed, with a laugh.Roman wasn't even surprised. Disappointed, but never surprised.
And suddenly there came a second, when somehow for the first time I saw (as if a door had opened from a dark room into the sunny street), and in the next second I already knew for sure that God exists and that God is the Jesus Christ of Orthodoxy, and not some other God. I call this moment the greatest miracle because this precise knowledge came to me not through reason (I know this for sure) but by some other way, and I am unable to explain this moment rationally ....
Fantasy imposes order on the universe. Or, at least, it superimposes order on the universe. And it is a human order. Reality tells us that we exist for a brief, beleaguered span in a cold infinity; fantasy tells us that the figures in the foreground are important. Fantasy peoples the alien Outside, and it doesn’t matter a whole lot if it peoples it with good guys or bad guys. Putting ‘Hy-Brasil’ on the map is a step in the right direction, but if you can’t manage that, then ‘Here Be Dragons is better than nothing. Better than the void.
Some people will follow their minds without listening to their hearts, and others will follow their hearts without listening to their minds. This is why reason exists, for there to be balance between the heart and mind. We were not meant to follow the mind and ignore the heart. Instead, we were meant to follow the heart over the mind, but without completely abandoning logic. The middle way is the preferred way, and this path simply means to allow your heart to drive you, but do not forget to balance reason with your conscience.
He shook his head, staring at her like a condemned man who beheld the face of his executioner. "Aline," he whispered, "Do you know what hell is?""Yes." Her eyes overflowed. "Trying to exist with your heart living somewhere outside your body.""No. It's knowing that you have so little faith in my love, you would have condemned me to a lifetime of agony." His face contorted suddenly. "To something worse than death.
Surely it is an odd way to spend your life - sitting alone in a room with a pen in your hand, hour after hour, day after day, year after year, struggling to put words on pieces of paper in order to give birth to what does not exist, except in your head. Why on earth would anyone want to do such a thing? The only answer I have ever been able to come up with is: because you have to, because you have no choice.
They say "the taste of the pudding is in the eating," but that doesn't apply to "a square peg in a round hole".If the peg is driven by hunger to give and desire to fill, and the hole on the other hand is moved by thirst to receive and purpose to fulfil, then a deep knowledge of the reason for existence, a mutual understanding of roles, and the wisdom to effectively carry out those roles are very key, if we must have a round peg in a round hole, or a square peg in a square hole.But then again, who cares about "shape" in desperation?!
Significantly, romantic friendships can coexist with the fact of partners' marrying because their reason for being is not to replace marriage but to open the possibility of sustained, committed true love existing among friends, and not just same-sex friends. No matter that our chosen relationship commitments change. Those of us who have long-term romantic friendships, some that have lasted longer than any of our marriages or partnerships, do not fear that these commitments will falter if we create primary bonds.
In our household doubts more troubling than these were suffered in silence. The spiritual void I have seen in so many of Istanbul's rich, Westernised, secularist families is evident in these silences. Everyone talks openly about mathematics, success at school, football and having fun, but they grapple with the most basic questions of existence - love,compassion, religion, the meaning of life, jealousy, hatred - in trembling confusion and painful solitude. They light a cigarette, give their attention to the music on the radio, return wordlessly to their inner worlds.
He shrugged. - They're just people - he said. - They're just doing what people do. Sir.Lord Vetinari gave him a friendly smile.- Of course, of course - he said. - You have to believe that, I appreciate. Otherwise you'd go quite mad. Otherwise you'd think you're standing on a feather-thin bridge over the vaults of Hell. Otherwise existence would be a dark agony and the only hope would be that there is no life after death. I quite understand.