“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
“Snatched away like socks glommed off the sale table at Wal-Mart, dog treat snapped up by an eager German Sheppard, mouse picked off the lawn by a swooping owl.”
Source: Between the Shadow and the Soul
“My mind spun like the flywheel on an antique John Deere, merry-go-round during second-grade recess, hard spun roulette wheel.”
Source: Between the Shadow and the Soul
“Flipped through memories like old copies of National Geographic, pages in a yellowing high-school year book, cable-television channels looking for a baseball game.”
Source: Between the Shadow and the Soul
“Disappeared like fog in a stiff morning breeze, teen revilers when a squad car creeps up the driveway, roaches when the kitchen light comes on.”
Source: Between the Shadow and the Soul
“Followed like a goat on a halter, hungry dog closing on his just-filled dinner bowl, water-bottle and towel carrier behind the tuba section of a marching band.”
Source: Between the Shadow and the Soul
“Rang in my ears like Easter morning churchbells in Rome, rumble from an unmuffled Harley, fireworks shells exploding over a Fourth-of-July parade.”
Source: Between the Shadow and the Soul
“Your eyes flash like Fourth-of-July sparklers, headlights on a mountain road, sparks in a short-circuited toaster.”
Source: Between the Shadow and the Soul