Why do I do anything?’ she says. ‘I’m educated enough to talk myself out of any plan. To deconstruct any fantasy. Explain away any goal. I’m so smart I can negate any dream.

Some want, to be exempt. They do not want to excel, they do not want to exert. They want to be considered excellent, for desiring to be held exempt, from all accountability.

Lethargy. It’s a word I know, because it’s in one of my father’s favorite expressions. Lethargy breeds lethargy. It means the more you lie around doing nothing, the more you want to lie around doing...

The last shall not become the first if the last is lagging behind.

Most of us probably fall several times a day into a fit somewhat like this: The eyes are fixed on vacancy, the sounds of the world melt into a confused unity, the attention is dispersed...

She felt all right. Her heart was like a drum hanging from piano wire in her chest, slowly, slowly beaten. Her hands and feet were numb, not with cold but with a sultry torpor. Thoughts...