No one starts a war - or rather, no one in his sense ought to do so - without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war adn how he intends to conduct it. -- CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ, Vom Kriege
Brother, I am fire
Surging under ocean floor.
I shall never meet you, brother--
Not for years, anyhow;
Maybe thousands of years, brother.
Then I will warm you,
Hold you close, wrap you in circles,
Use you and change you--
Maybe thousands of years, brother.--
Carl Sandburge, "Kin" (查看原文)
And if your parents have you for a reason, then that reason better exist. Because once it's gone, so are you.
God was obviously in some kind of mood on my birthday... (查看原文)
...but ever since then, we've been too busy looking over our shoulders to run headlong into growing up. You know how most little kids think they're like cartoon characters -- if an anvil drops on their heads they can peel themselves off the sidewalk and keep going? Well, I never once believed that. How could I, when we practically set a place for Death at the dinner table?
Moments like this are the same kind of vacuum; no matter what you cling to, you wind up being sucked in.
Normal, in our house, is like a blanket too short for a bed--sometimes it covers you just fine, and other times it leaves you cold and shaking; and worst of all, you never know which of the two it's going to be.
She's supposed to deserve this, because she's three years older than meor because she's sick or because the... (查看原文)
My father says that a fire will burn itself out, unless you open a window and give it fuel. I suppose that's what I'm doing, when you get right down to it; but then again, my dad also says that when flames are licking at your heels you've got to break a wall or two if you want to escape. (查看原文)
"Don't mess with the system, Anna," he says bitterly. "We've all got our scripts down pat. Kate plays the Martyr. I'm the lost cause. And you, you're the peacemaker.
WHEN YOU ONLY HAVE A HAMMER, everything looks like a nail.
This is something my fahter, the first Campbell Alexander, used to say; it is also in my opinion the cornerstone of the American civil justice system. Simply put, people who have been backed into a corner will do anything to fight their way to the center again. For some, this means throwing punches. For others, it means instigating a lawsuit. And for that, I'm especially grateful.
You know how every now and then, you have a moment where your whole life stretches out ahead of you like a forked road, and even as you choose one gritty path you've got your eyes on the othe... (查看原文)
An heir and a spare;
This is the language of a marriage: Morse code, punctuated by baths and dinners and stories before bed.
I think there are crossroads in our lives when we make grand, sweeping decisions without even realizing it. Like scanning the newspaper headline at a red light, and therefore missing the rogue van that jumps the line of traffic and causes an accident. Entering a coffee shop on a whim and meeting the man you will marry one day, while he's digging for change at the counter.
I have only known her for two years. But if you took every memory, every moment, if you stretched them end to end--they'd reach forever.
When they gently turn Kate's face to the other side, the tissue paper beneath her cheek is damp. I learn form my own daughter that you don't have to be awake to cr... (查看原文)
For every nineteen degrees hotter a fire burns, it doubles in size.
His eyes are devil-red; his clothes are ringed with sweet smoke. "Look at that," Sara-sighs, but when I turn, she is staring at the roast. "It's too rare."
This is not Anna. I am used to struggling with Jesse, to lightening Kate's load; but Anna is our family's constant. Anna comes in with a smile. Anna tells us about the robin she found with a broken wing and a blush on its cheek; or about the mother she saw at Wal-Mart with not one but two sets of twins. Anna gives us a backbeat, and seeing her sitting there unresponsive makes me realize that silence has a sound. (查看原文)
