The home is the most ritualized place in a society; each house is like a religious order with its own ceremonies.

Destiny is not always preordained. Life is about making choices. Our lives are the sum of all the choices we make, the bridges we cross, and the ones we burn. Our souls cast long shadows...

What the hell is that?” he asked.”Magic mushrooms.””I’ve always wanted to try those,” he exclaimed. “They sound so cute.

Do you not know that God entrusted you with that money (all above what buys necessities for your families) to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to help the stranger, the widow, the fatherless;...

Well, finally, once you become an orphan, you’re an orphan till the day you die. I keep having the same dream. I’m seven years old and an orphan again. All alone, with no adults around...

While many of us give to the hungry orphan, we have forgotten to love her.

All I could do was laugh, but it wasn’t funny. I find it incredibly sad to be tickled by an orphan.

zoom lens effect,” in which the focus is entirely on oneself, to the exclusion of external considerations.

When other girls were dreaming about love, she dreamt of love too, but in an entirely different context – the ones they took for granted.

Yes, my sister is weird and says crap like en route. I smirk – it’s a common facial tic of mine – and turn to her.

History is orphan. It can speak, but cannot hear. It can give, but cannot take. Its wounds and tragedies can be read and known, but cannot be avoided or cured.

Can I have my knife back?’ Meaning, can I have my knife back. I don’t care whether this man seems like he only goes after age appropriate penis; I won’t be taking any chances. And...

Orphans? Would you really? Adopt children?””There are advantages. If they turn out badly, we can blame their natural parents. We can also choose our own assortment of ages and genders. We can even get them...

And after that until the end, there was no relief from being a girl with chores that she wasn’t being paid for, a girl with no new sandals and a friend who wasn’t a friend...

It’s a neighborhood where every dad has at least one job and where parents often end conversations with the words: no guts, no glory.

For a terrible time of life a teen-ager deceives himself; he believes he can trick the world. He believes he is invulnerable. An adolescent who is an orphan at this phase is in danger of...

I hope we gave them that sense of belonging because I know there’ll be times in their lives when grasping at those bonds could mean the difference between making it and not.

When you don’t have something anymore, you learn to live without it.” That’s what my dad told me that first night after he found me sleeping inside a closet underneath a pile of my mom’s...

I thought back to Meg’s advice about Hemingway sentences—simple declarative statements that showed the truth and distilled the meaning. My first attempt at that had been cynical and messed up. I gave it a go...