Me and Writing This was the summer that I think I became a writer. I was thirteen years old. I wore steel-rimmed glasses and I was a very 1)solemn boy. Not that I was sad, but I simply was paying attention. I'd been given a typewriter by my Uncle Geo...
The big rocks One day an expert in time management was speaking to a group of business students and, to drive home a point, used an illustration those students will never forget. As he stood in front of the group of high-powered over-achievers he sai...
A Lesson for Living Everything happens for the best, my mother said whenever I faced disappointment. If you 1)carry on, one day something good will happen. And you'll realize that it wouldn't have happened if not for that 2)previous disappointment. M...
Stray Birds 1)Stray birds of summer come to my window to sing and fly away. And yellow leaves of autumn, which have no songs, flutter and fall there with a sigh. If you 2)shed tears when you miss the sun, you also miss the stars. Man is a born child,...
The Mysterious Recluse Garbodivine, mysterious, 1)reclusive. One of the most famous faces of the 20th century. On screen she was 2)raw sexuality, off screen her affairs with men and women 3)captivated the press. And her silence made her a legend. But...
I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great 1)artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. It might even be the greatest of the arts since the 2)medium is the human mind and spirit. I shall speak only of my first...
In the winter of 1997, I saw a Spanish film called Abre Los Ojos. I couldn't get it out of my mind. The movie felt like a folk song to me, part fable, part poem, partly a committed conversation that you'd have with someone late at night when big idea...
On beauty Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide? And how shall you speak of her except she be the 1)weaver of your speech? The 2)aggrieved and the 3)injured say, Beauty is kind and gentl...
Most people complain of fortune, few of nature; and the kinder they think the latter has been to them, the more they murmur at what they call the injustice of the former. Why have not I the riches, the rank, the power, of such and such, is the common...
What is immortal To see the golden sun and the azure sky, the outstretched ocean, to walk upon the green earth, and to be a lord of a thousand creatures to look down giddy precipices or over distant flowery vales, to see the world spread out under on...
