“High-pitched squeal like a beauty pageant contestant found best in show, Oprah audience member given a new Chevy, rookie actress surprised with an unlikely Oscar.”
Source: Between the Shadow and the Soul
“Tourists hurried past them on the pedestrian-only street like chickens scampering to the feeder, cars scurrying through a tollgate, Niagara River rushing into the falls.”
Source: Between the Shadow and the Soul
“Could be an amazing product, sell like condoms at a high school prom, donuts at a police convention, sunscreen on a Caribbean crush ship.”
Source: Between the Shadow and the Soul
“She pinched her lips tight together, like someone considering a foul smell, three-legged dog, ugly baby.”
Source: Between the Shadow and the Soul
“Fluorescent lights on the ceiling lit up the white Formica top of her desk like an operating table, white-sand beach at high noon, French fries under the heat lamp at McDonald’s.”
Source: Between the Shadow and the Soul
“Like a fire alarm going off in your ear, sulfur up your nose, mouth full of sour milk, reality is what it is – you deal with it.”
Source: Between the Shadow and the Soul
“Ditched like an unwanted cat, worn-out tire, ugly blind date.”
Source: Between the Shadow and the Soul
“A surprising number, like options in the cereal aisle, liberal studies graduates working fast food, people who don’t know Shakespeare coined the phrase break the ice.”
Source: Between the Shadow and the Soul
“Breathed like a contestant in a polka marathon, sit-up contest, stationary bike race.”
Source: Between the Shadow and the Soul
“My advice is really this: what we hear the philosophers saying and what we find in their writings should be applied in our pursuit of the happy life. We should hunt out the helpful pieces of teaching, and the spirited and noble-minded sayings which are capable of immediate practical application—not far-fetched or archaic expressions or extravagant metaphors and figures of speech—and learn them so well that words become works. No one to my mind lets humanity down quite so much as those who study philosophy as if it were a sort of commercial skill and then proceed to live in a quite different manner from the way they tell other people to live.”
Source: Letters from a Stoic