Pride

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From White Oleander (1999)

  Though your letter as poetry leaves something to be desired, at least it indicates a spark, a capacity for fire which I never would have believed you possessed. But really, you cannot think you will cut yourself free of me so easily. I live in you, in your bones, the delicate coils of your mind. I made you. I formed the thoughts you find, the moods you carry. Your blood whispers my name. Even in rebellion, you are mine. You want my penitence, demand my shame? Why would you want me to be less than I am, so you could find it easier to dismiss me? I’d rather you think me grotesque, florid with fantasy. I’m out of segregation, thank you for asking. Waiting for me on my restoration to Barneburg B was, among other missives, a letter from Harper’s. Oh the praise, a jailhouse Plath! (Although I am no suicide, no baked poetess with my head among the potatoes.) Do not give up on me so soon, Astrid. There are people who are interested in my case. I will not molder here like the Man in the Iron Mask. This is the millennium. Anything can happen. And if I had to be wrongly imprisoned to be noticed by Harper’s —well… you could almost say it was worth it. And to think, when I was out, a good day was a handwritten rejection from Dog Breath Review. They’re taking a long poem on bird themes—the prison crows, migratory geese, I even used the doves, remember them? On St. Andrew’s Place. Of course you do. You remember everything. You were afraid of the ruined dovecote, wouldn’t go out into the yard until I’d prodded among the clumps of ivy to scare off snakes. You were always frightened of the wrong thing. I found the fact that the doves returned, though the chicken wire had long since given way to ivy, a far more troubling prospect. You want to write me off? Try. Just realize when you’re cutting off the plank upon which you stand, which end of it is nailed to the ship. I will survive, but will you? I have a following—I call them my children. Young pierced artists avid with admiration, they make their pilgrimage here from Fontana and Long Beach, Sonoma and San Bernardino, they come from as far away as Vancouver, B.C. And if I can say so, they are much more to my taste than trembling actresses with two-carat wedding bands. They claim a network of renegade feminists, lesbians, practitioners of Wicca and performance artists up and down the West Coast, a sort of Underground Goddess Train. They’re ready to help me any way that they can; they are willing to forgive me anything. Why aren’t you? Your loving mother, Masturbating Rot Crow P.S. I have a surprise for you. I’ve just met with my new attorney, Susan D. Valeris. Recognize the name? Attorney for the feminine damned?

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  Several months later she tells me, “Your urging me to get a sense of myself from other men besides Philip has been very good for me.” She started doing things with her male friends, going to concerts and galleries, and she has generally been more flirtatious. “Nothing big, you know, but it’s been fun to be out there again, talking to men who are not my husband, knowing they enjoy my company. And now, Philip’s every word or look isn’t the most important thing in my life.” Jackie’s new confidence has left Philip slightly unmoored, and that turns out to be a good thing. He is intrigued by the way she writes to him, and is surprised to find that in the graphic lexicon of sex, she can certainly hold her own. All this sexualizes her in his eyes. Freed from the predictability of a script, he takes a second look. The pseudo anonymity of their E-mails has allowed him to see her as a subject with her own desires, turning her into the object of his desire. “I’m saying things to her that I never thought I could. I expected she’d be turned off, but she’s not. She needs a lot less taking care of than I projected onto her,” Philip admits. “I realized I put a lot of stuff on her that doesn’t belong to her. It belongs to me, or at least to my family.” “I don’t get how your flings were supposed to be taking care of me, though I know in your mind it makes sense,” Jackie tells him. “It’s not OK, but I understand it. Still, I was always surprised at how easily you let yourself be caught. Like you were asking for it, so you could come to Mommy and get punished. I’m not interested in replaying your family drama. I’ll leave you first, and you know it.” To me she says, “Realizing I had the strength to leave helped me make the choice to stay. I have a lot more freedom. When I initiate sex now, I can feel almost brazen, and I like that. ‘You want this, Philip? Take it!’ It doesn’t have to be romantic or even particularly personal. I like a lot of different things. I prefer tender love, but sometimes greedy is good, too.” I’ve worked with Jackie and Philip on and off for years. Philip has stopped acting out, and over time he has searched for ways to undo the deeply ingrained belief that hot sex can’t happen at home.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  I even became almost popular when I succeeded in obtaining an extra day of rest through a new system of rotation in our duties. A Jewish doctor had been specially appointed to the camps and came around once a week. We also had a permanent nurse, a former pharmacist who had no medical training. Only the more clever had managed so far to be reported sick. I persuaded the doctor, who pretended he was happy to speak at last to an intellectual, that it was necessary to grant a rest to those men who threatened to break down. Many had given up all hope and withdrawn into a mute stupor, and the unexpected rest certainly helped to save some of them. I remember with emotion the extraordinary scene when poor Basmouth, who had become a sort of hairy animal clothed in rags, spent his day off feverishly washing himself, as though he were afraid the day would end before he had managed to get clean. I triumphed the day two men came and asked me timidly if I could organize a Sabbath service. In other circumstances, I would have refused vehemently. For years I had not even been inside a synagogue. But they were asking for what seemed most important to them, so I joyfully accepted. I soon saw what use I could make of such meetings. Through the group chiefs I requested permission of the military authorities to hold a strictly religious service. My excuse was that the men’s morale must be improved, which was true, and that, in consequence, they would work better, which was doubtful. My reasoning seemed valid, and permission was granted. As I could not undertake the religious part, rather because of my ignorance than of any scruple, I found an assistant capable of saying the prayers — they were all capable of this — and kept for myself the sermon, which mattered more to me. It worried me to have to trick my own people like the enemy. But if religion could help me save these men and give them a collective consciousness which would keep them sane, I would use their religion. They did not, however, all have confidence in me, and the more suspicious were among the most faithful. Some welcomed the idea of keeping up religious education, others demanded a rabbi. On Wednesdays and Thursdays the coming ceremony was the center of discussion, and often silence fell as I approached. To add to the solemnity of the occasion, I induced the kitchens, which were supplied by the community, to make a special effort. I prepared my program with great care. The rest was a question of propaganda, and in this I was greatly helped by the scouts and a few men who had understood my ultimate aim.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  serious student of the ranks and honors available to the ambitious, and made up calenders of deadlines by which I planned my rise from Tenderfoot to Eagle. I developed a headwaiter’s eye; when we met with other troops to compete at Scout skills I could read their uniforms at a glance and know exactly who was who. The main purpose of scouting as I understood it was to accumulate symbols that would compel respect, or at least civility, from those who shared them and envy from those who did not. Conspicuous deeds of patriotism and piety, rope craft, water wisdom, fire wizardry, first-aid, all the arts of forest and mountain and stream, seemed to me just different ways of getting badges. Dwight gave me Skipper’s old Scout manual, Handbook for Boys, outdated even when Skipper had it, a 1942 edition full of pictures of “Fighting Scouts” keeping a lookout for Nazi subs and Jap bombers. I read the Handbook almost every night, cruising for easy merit badges like Indian Lore, Bookbinding, Reptile Study, and Personal Health (“Show proper method of brushing teeth and discuss the importance of dental care. . . .”). The merit-badge index was followed by advertisements for official Scout gear, and then a list of The Firms That Make the Things You Want, among them Coca-Cola, Eastman Kodak, Evinrude and Nestle’s (“The Boy Scout Emergency Ration”), and finally by a section called Where to Go to School. The schools were mostly military academies with sonorous double-barreled names. Carson Long. Morgan Park. Cochran-Bryan. Valley Forge. Castle Heights. I liked reading all these advertisements. They were a natural part of the Handbook, in whose pages the Scout Spirit and the spirit of commerce mingled freely, and often indistinguishably. “What the Scout Is determines his progress in whatever line of business he may seek success—and Scout Ideals mean progress in business.” Suggested good turns were enumerated on a ledger, so the Scout could check them off as he performed them: Assisted a foreign boy with some English grammar. Helped put out a burning field. Gave water to crippled dog. Here, even the murky enterprise of self-examination could be expressed as a problem in accounting. “On a scale of 100, what all-around rating would I be justified in giving myself?” I liked all these numbers and lists, because they offered the clear possibility of mastery. But what I liked best about the Handbook was its voice, the bluff hail- fellow language by which it tried to make being a good boy seem adventurous, even romantic. The Scout Spirit was traced to King Arthur’s Round Table, and from there to the explorers and pioneers and warriors whose conquests had been achieved through fair play and clean living. “No man given over to dissipation

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  It would be a tough struggle, though I felt that no struggle could really be too tough for me. I exaggerated the difficulties that lay ahead of me, but this was only to enhance my own heroic attitude. I organized my life accordingly, working out several basic plans, then developing the individual details, as do all great builders. In this manner, my first efforts were soon crowned with success. I filed an application for a job as supervisor of studies in a high-school dormitory for resident students. Our principal remembered his promise and, within a week, I received my appointment. I then wrote a letter to the Head of the Philosophy Department in Algiers, which was the nearest university, asking him in all simplicity for some assistance. Though a professor on a university faculty was, in my eyes, a very important person indeed, he wrote me a reply that was full of encouragement; he even promised to look over my essays. My life as a poor student was divided between my work as a supervisor, monotonous and bothersome, and my own studies that were difficult enough, for lack of any advice other than this irregular checking of my philosophical compositions. My time was broken up, even my thoughts interrupted, by my constantly having to watch what was going on in passages and staircases, by my having to be present whenever the students moved from one class to the next, and by my having to attend to endless administrative details. Every hour on the hour, as soon as the bell rang, I had to put on my jacket and rush out of my room. Once the rhythm of my studies had thus been interrupted, it was difficult for me to return to the concentration and the flow of thought that are necessary for any productive work. I made up for all this, however, by making increasingly heavy demands on myself and by becoming even more austere. I no longer allowed myself any outings, stopped going to the movies, and added several more hours to my schedule of studies so as to make up in quantity what I had lost in quality of concentration. The study plan that I worked out for myself was calculated on the basis of periods of fifteen minutes, not only from day to day but for several months ahead, and I then forced my body and my mind to comply with this schedule that fitted me like a tight corset. I got up at dawn, my eyes still smarting from sleeplessness, and I went to bed again in the evening only when I began to fall asleep over a difficult textbook. But all this made me somehow aware of my own superiority.

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  Far from it. What I am saying, based on the revolutionary meaning of Jesus’s crucifixion, is that “life after death” is a quite different thing from what most Western Christians have imagined, since the ultimate future is a life after “life after death,” in other words, the life of the resurrection and the ultimate new creation; that “human behavior” from a biblical point of view is quite a different thing from the normal view of codes of either morality or self-discovery, because what matters is not “works” (whether ours or Jesus’s), but vocation, the human calling to worship God and reflect him into his world. And I am therefore saying, in the present chapter, that through the cross Jesus won the Passover victory over the “powers,” that he did this precisely by dying under the weight of the world’s sin, and that Christian mission consists of putting this victory into practice using the same means. All this brings us back once more to the heart and center of all Christian discipleship. The new Passover is the large, overarching reality. Jesus has defeated all the anti-God, anticreation powers. He has stripped them of their borrowed robes and robbed them of their hollow crowns. And he has done this by dealing with the sins, the human idolatries and injustices, that handed to the “powers” the authority and responsibility given to humans in the first place.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  She spoke as if she were merely yielding to some fancy of mine. I would have preferred it if she had shown some emotion about accepting my proposal, as if she were trying to conceal her pleasure. Still, she did grant me an awareness of complicity; she assured me she would tell nobody that we were going out together, all by ourselves. I was too glad to be at long last able to enjoy the business of being in love, and too proud to be going out with her, elegant and lovely and popular as she was, so I wasted no time quarreling about shades of meaning. I knew that all the other boys surely envied me my luck, now that I had caught up with them and was even well ahead. Yes, I of all people, the boy whom they all found too serious and a bit of a prig, as they said. I was stupid enough to believe that I had been deprived of these pleasures which, I thought, were exclusively reserved for the rich, I mean the business of pretending to be in love. Still, I’m not unattractive, I found, and, as a matter of fact, better looking than most of them. I began to look at my own reflection in mirrors and rather enjoyed being able to rediscover myself in this manner. My nose, it’s true, might be a bit long, but only a trifle. I found I had a good profile, firm features, good strong teeth set in even rows, the high forehead of an intellectual and curly black hair. Be that as it may, I had been chosen among many, and by Ginou of all people!

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Once I was clean, the women took me by the hand and began, with songs and trills of joy and excitement, to dress me, each one handing me a different garment, as this brought luck to each in turn. This was the most pleasant moment in my bar mitzvah celebrations, the only one when I was the actual center of attraction. All the women were crowding around me, squabbling for the honor of helping me put on my undershirt, my shirt, or a sock. Though they handled me and turned me about without much tenderness, I was still the only object of their thoughts, so I was proud to let them do as they wished, except when it came to putting on my drawers. Dressed in a dark blue suit, with patent-leather shoes on my feet, I then went to pay a call, accompanied by my ushers, on each one of my uncles in turn. Tradition required that they give me presents to thank me for coming. But I derived no great pleasure from all this. Each one of them, after kissing me, Uncle Gastoune, Uncle Mirou, Monsieur Maarek who was Uncle Mirou’s partner, and Uncle Aroun, gave me some money. But money, though it might well be an indirect way of helping my father, was not of much importance to me, since I knew that I had to turn all of it over to him. I had hoped very much to get a wrist watch or, in its stead, a fine fountain pen. Only my Uncle Abbou gave me, with trembling hands, a small case of worn leather that I opened as soon as I was out of his house. It contained a tiny silver cup with a spoon to match. It was an eggcup. I had never seen one used, and I assumed it was a cup for drinking, but too small.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  He accepted my letter, adding that he approved of my gesture and would have done the same himself. I was proud and moved that I had had the courage to do what my school principal himself would have done, and I left his office feeling quits with the persecutors of Vichy. I had hit back, blow for blow. Of course, I had lost my job. But my reputation, both as a serious pupil and as a student, assured me many requests for private lessons. When they had encroached on my rigid schedule, I had refused them; now I would accept them. Even when the universities were closed to Jews I was not alarmed. Having no money, I could not attend them anyway. But we did have the right to continue to the end of the school year. The war was not real enough for me to imagine how long it might last. On the contrary, my own near future seemed so promising that in my own mind I just ignored this obstacle. Immediately, with the arrival of the Germans, came disaster. No longer did I have the leisure to meditate; we were hurled into such a whirlwind that we only started breathing again after they left. Disaster certainly makes one less lucid. The first morning after that sinister evening when the German authorities settled in the dark city, the Kommandantur took its first anti-Jewish steps. Armed with well-prepared lists and accompanied, as was fitting, by their French colleagues, the German police went out to collect several hundred hostages. It was announced that, at the slightest opposition, they would all be shot. Then came requisitions and exactions and murders. Now that we have news from the rest of the world, I know that we did not reach the bottom of the abyss. We had no gas chambers or crematoria. Those of us who were deported to Germany probably went through all that, but we did not know about it at the time. We were saved from despair by our ignorance and our lack of understanding concerning all that was upsetting our daily routine. I found out all about it later, and I know now what risks we ran and might still have run. That is why I want to deal quickly with this part of my story. We certainly had our share of misery, however meager compared to that of others.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  In the end, my supporters won the day and, one afternoon, as we sat in class listening to a lecture on astronomy, our little supervisor, Dubois, came in, his red nose stuck out ahead of him and his eyes glistening with tears of timidity. He then handed our instructor my summons to the commencement ceremony where the prizes would be announced, and ran off. Our mathematics instructor, a heavy Alsatian who constantly reminded us of his Germanic background, as opposed to the softness of Africa, and who therefore affected a Prussian crew-cut and a brutal manner, now read the message aloud, carefully pronouncing each word. In the silence that had come over the expectant class, my glory was becoming a reality under the very eyes of my classmates as they all stared at me. I lowered my own gaze, overcome by pride, in spite of my desire to appear detached. I could no longer feel the existence of my own body. I seemed to be only the hard beating of my own heart as it struck like a bell in the air. Again, I began to feel the burning heat in my cheeks, and I was called back to reality when Sitboun, who sat next to me, remarked: “Say, you swine...” This consecration of my glory made all my desires crystallize. I would make a career of philosophy, a daily business of it. My present prominence and the envious admiration of my classmates would then be permanent. Before the results of our written examinations and especially of the one in philosophy had been announced, my classmates had stared at me; when my name was announced again and again, they shrugged their shoulders and returned to their own business of scrambling for the next best places after me.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  I asked. Rosa turned to Martin. “I like you. I don’t know why.” She turned back to face me: “He’s been here for a week, but today, in this group, is the first time I’ve spoken to him. It’s like we have a lot in common, but I know we don’t.” “Do you feel understood?” “Understood? I don’t know. Well, yeah, in a funny sort of way I do. Maybe that’s it.” “That’s what I saw. I saw Martin trying his best to understand you. And he wasn’t trying to do anything else—I didn’t hear him try to manage you or tell you what to do, or even tell you that you ought to eat.” “It’s a good thing he didn’t try. It wouldn’t have done any good.” Here Rosa turned to Carol, and they exchanged bony grins of complicity. I hated their grisly conspiracy. I wanted to shake them so hard their bones rattled. I wanted to shout, “Stop drinking those Diet Cokes! Stay off those goddamn stationary bikes! This is no joke; you two are five or six pounds away from death, and when each of you is finished dying, your entire life will be described in a three-word epitaph: ‘ I died thin .’” But of course I kept these sentiments to myself. It would have done nothing but rupture whatever slender strands of a relationship I had established with them. Instead I said to Rosa, “Are you aware that through your discussion with Martin, you’ve already filled part of your agenda today? You said you wanted to have the experience of being understood by someone, and Martin seems to have done exactly that.” I then turned to Martin. “How do you feel about that? ” Martin just stared at me. This, I thought, may be the liveliest interaction he has had for years. “Remember,” I reminded him, “you started this meeting by saying you could no longer be of use to anyone. I heard Rosa say you were of use to her. Did you hear that too?” Martin nodded. I saw that his eyes were glistening and that he was too moved to speak further. Still, it was enough. With only the tiniest of openings, I had done good work with Martin and Rosa. At least we wouldn’t walk away empty-handed (and I confess I was thinking of the residents as much as of the patients). I turned back to Rosa. “How do you feel about what Magnolia is saying to you today? I’m not sure it’s possible to leave California to eat, but what I did see was Magnolia stretching out to help you.” “Stretch? I’m surprised to hear you say that,” said Rosa. “I don’t think of Magnolia stretching. Giving is natural to her, like breathing. She is a pure soul. I wish I could take her home with me or go home with her.” “Honey,” Magnolia gave Rosa an enormous, toothy smile, “you don’t wanna go to mah house. Jes’ can’t fumigate it.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Monsieur Bismuth’s pharmacists always treated me with a condescending manner. They identified themselves with the store, and I was somehow sure that they said to themselves: “There’s the kid whose studies we pay for...” Whenever I went to the store, I simply put in an appearance and waited until someone decided to attend to me. Generally, they served several customers before announcing me. But I was in a hurry, that day, and swollen too with legitimate pride as I had to be on time for the announcements of the prizes. So I refrained from waiting for one of the pharmacists to be kind enough to attend to me; instead, I interrupted one at his work, told him my business was urgent and asked him to announce me without further delay. Miraculous though it might seem, he smiled and complied, and Monsieur Bismuth immediately sent back a reply to the effect that he would see me at once. So I sat down beside some waiting customers. I pitied these anxious, resigned, and suffering people from the bottom of my heart, for it was brimful with the noble and generous feelings that characterize men who are happy. There was much coming and going, there was a screeching sound whenever the glass panel of a display case was slid open, and the reflections of the neon lights varied constantly as the mirrors and glass panes and shining metal fixtures moved. Customers whispered and the cash register noisily made us aware of its presence; it was indeed an essential fixture, enthroned there regally and constantly working beneath the self-satisfied fingers of the owner’s niece. One touch, two touches, three, then a bell rang and the cash drawer opened. A veritable shower of money seemed to pour. The drugstore owner was really making a lot of money, and that was why the general consensus considered him a success. I smiled as I thought of my own secret ambition: no, I was too noble in my own eyes, too disinterested for a profession like this. I was made to live and to promote ideas (which was a slogan I had learned in my philosophy class), to experience the true and the beautiful. Official recognition of this had only just been granted to me. No, I would never allow myself to become a mere cash register. How vulgar! Monsieur Bismuth, former President of the Chamber of Commerce. How odd that some people take pride in having devoted their whole life to money-making! But time was going by, the appointed hour for the ceremony was approaching, and I had still not been summoned to the office of my benefactor. I asked the pharmacist whether Monsieur Bismuth might not have forgotten that I was waiting. And I suggested that he might make the trip along the corridor to the office again, but he pretended not to understand me and made a vague effort to reassure me.

• From The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church's Conservative Icon (2009)

  In the first century, Tarsus was the capital city of the Roman province of Cilicia and the dominant city of the fertile plain that surrounded it. Thirty miles to its north were the cold peaks of the Taurus Mountains, and ten miles to its south were the warm waters of the Mediterranean coast. Today, Adana on the Seyhan River has far outstripped Tarsus on the Cydnus River as the dominant city of the agriculturally fertile Çukurova Plain, but at the time of Paul’s birth Tarsus, not Adana, was queen of Cilicia. And Tarsus on the Cydnus was a birthplace both fortunate and unfortunate for Paul as an itinerant apostle of Jesus. Paul was born around 8 CE, and his birth at Tarsus gave him three very good gifts and one rather bad one—although he himself would have disagreed with that last designation. And all of those gifts, good or bad, helpful or unhelpful, came from the same urban feature: location, location, location. The first positive gift was vista and involved the advantages of a frontier city between the Greek and the Semitic worlds. We think today of the Mediterranean fault line between West and East as extending along the Dardanelles to the Bosphorus and splitting the modern city of Istanbul into European and Asian sections. At the turn of the era, you could more easily imagine it as extending along the Cydnus River and splitting into two parts, as it were, the ancient city of Tarsus. Tarsus looked toward both the West and the East. Those born there could easily imagine going north through the Cilician Gates in the Taurus Mountains and then west toward Asia Minor and Greece. They could just as easily imagine going east through the Syrian Gates in the Amanus Mountains and then south toward Israel and Egypt. Tarsus gave Paul an early vision of sea and mountain, gorge and river, gave him an early vista of difficult actualities, but open possibilities. The second positive gift was labor and involved an appreciation for what could be accomplished by hard work. The Tarsians made their city even as their city made them. To the south and the Mediterranean Sea, they had engineered a secure harbor from their river’s gift of a large lagoon. To the north and the Anatolian plateau, they had engineered a wagon road through their mountain’s gift of a deep defile. Tarsians connected together the open vista of the Mediterranean Sea, the steamy marsh of the Cilician plain, the icy cold of the Taurus range, and the baked heat of the Anatolian plateau. Geography was destiny, to be sure, but hard work could change geography and thus change history as well.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  The ceremony was to take place the next day, a Thursday, at five o’clock. I still had to announce my triumph to Monsieur Bismuth before going to the assembly hall. I went all the way to the drugstore with my shoulders proudly thrown back and, as on the day of my bar mitzvah, all the way back home from the synagogue, people in the street turned around to stare at me as they had on that previous occasion too, when I went by in my new blue suit, followed by my ushers. Now I could hear their voices and I was anxious to see the people stare at me as before. I felt light-footed as an angel and my head seemed to be up among the little white clouds in the sky that is always blue when I have triumphed. For the first time, I would see Monsieur Bismuth without feeling ill at ease. Now that I had managed to obtain recognition as the best pupil in the school system of my whole country, I had certainly proved myself worthy of the opportunity that had been granted me. I had justified all the hopes that had been vested in me by the Alliance Israélite Universelle, by the community and by Monsieur Bismuth. I had never admitted to anyone the nature of my relationship with Monsieur Bismuth, not even to Bissor, who was also the beneficiary of a grant. It had all remained a secret, reassuring to me but also humiliating. When I told Ginou that I would one day be a physician, my hopes were always firmly founded on this financial security. But all my dearest hopes were also intermingled with a secret shame. My great success now left me the same delicious taste as suddenly finding myself free of a bothersome debt.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  I was eleven years old when I was ready to take the examinations for my school certificate, an exceptional age for grade school, which was usually completed at thirteen. Foolishly, we made jokes about the ignorance of the high-school kids who were taking the same examination, but we overlooked the fact that they were much younger than we. Besides, the certificate was not required for them, and whatever backwardness they revealed at the examination was made up for in the course of their seven high-school years. They then came up for their baccalaureate exam at the age of sixteen, whereas the former grade-school pupils could not achieve this before the age of eighteen or nineteen. But I had not yet begun to look so far ahead. I was merely proud of getting into the last year of grade school and of being the youngest in my class. Still, it meant no advantages for me, as the lowest age for admission as a candidate was twelve. Everything was indeed very well worked out. If one of us managed to overcome all these handicaps, it proved that he was really much better than all the sons of middle-class parents. When our instructor, Monsieur Marzouk, drew up the list of official candidates, he was sorry to have to warn me that I had to wait until the next year. For a brief moment, the whole class concentrated its attention on me and I was more proud of it all than disappointed. Nor did I even dream that there was such a thing as an entrance examination for admission to the lowest high-school grade, which one could take at any age and that made the school certificate unnecessary. Who could have informed me? My father, who had attended only a year or two of school, or my mother, who has never learned to read or write any language? Our tribe, too busy with the daily preoccupations of its difficult life, had no knowledge of the passionate discussions of middle-class families concerning the future of their children. My immediate future, in school, was always far too uncertain to allow any long-term planning. So I quietly made the most of this honor of having to mark time for a full year and completed a second year of the same grade, winning all the prizes. These easy prizes indeed had more influence on my future, perhaps, than any precocious success at the school certificate might have had.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  On the appointed evening, I demanded of my mother that she supply me with a spotlessly white shirt, a symbol of all that is both solemn and clean. I made her iron it a second time beneath my very eyes as all our linen, crowded in drawers that were too full, always had a crumpled appearance. Before dressing, I put brilliantine on my hair but was then obliged to clean it off with a rag, a tuft of hair at a time, because I had put too much on. As always when the occasion warranted, I wore my sweater beneath my shirt, under the impression that a shirt front looked more dressy. Besides, none of my sweaters really matched my suit, so I had no real choice. Finally, I turned my overcoat inside out and folded it over my arm: it was too worn for me to be able to think of wearing it. I couldn’t yet afford an overcoat every year as I could a new suit or a new pair of shoes, so I simply had to go without an overcoat on special occasions like this one.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Today, without any useless pride, I can really admit that I have sometimes regretted not having studied medicine. I chose, instead, this terrifying and exhausting search for one’s real identity that philosophy implies, and also the ceaseless attempt to master the universe that is the writer’s fate. But are these preferable, I mean this proud choice, the constant anxiety, the look in one’s eyes that is always restless, are these better than stability, security, no matter how mediocre? I might even have forgotten philosophy and remembered it only as a boyhood love, nostalgic and yet ridiculous. As a physician, however, I would have preserved the somewhat simple complacency and intellectual security and pride of one of those petty-bourgeois representatives of culture. On that day, however, when Monsieur Bismuth informed me that he was withdrawing his financial support, I saw it as but one more obstacle to surmount. I no longer had anybody on whom I could rely. This was one more rope that had once guaranteed my security and that had now broken and failed me. I was not afraid, I only felt that it would mean all the more glory if I made a success of my life, battling my way ahead by the sheer strength of my own wrists. I contemplated myself with some emotion and self-complacency: Alexandre Benillouche, professor of philosophy! To me, it seemed prodigious, so full of promise. For this wonderful goal remained, after all, only one of many stages on my way. As a physician, I had no chance of fame; nor could I have remained content with a profession that clearly imposed on me such intolerable limitations. As a philosopher and writer, I would be able to taste every experience and seize at every kind of glory. At that time, I never stopped to count the cost, in blood and sweat, of these experiences, nor had it yet occurred to me that, without assistance, without advice, above all spending my gifts profusely, I might collapse out of sheer exhaustion.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Further, Jerome commenting on the words of Titus 2:15, “Let no man despise thee,” says that “not only should bishops, priests, and deacons take very great care to be examples of speech and conduct to those over whom they are placed, but also the lower grades, and without exception all who serve the household of God, since it is most disastrous to the Church if the laity be better than the clergy.” Therefore holiness of life is requisite in all the Orders. I answer that, As Dionysius says (Eccl. Hier. iii), “even as the more subtle and clear essences, being filled by the outpouring of the solar radiance, like the sun enlighten other bodies with their brilliant light, so in all things pertaining to God a man must not dare to become a leader of others, unless in all his habits he be most deiform and godlike.” Wherefore, since in every order a man is appointed to lead others in Divine things, he who being conscious of mortal sin presents himself for Orders is guilty of presumption and sins mortally. Consequently holiness of life is requisite for Orders, as a matter of precept, but not as essential to the sacrament; and if a wicked man be ordained, he receives the Order none the less, and yet with sin withal. Reply to Objection 1: Just as the sinner dispenses sacraments validly, so does he receive validly the sacrament of Orders, and as he dispenses unworthily, even so he receives unworthily. Reply to Objection 2: The service in point consisted only in the exercise of bodily homage, which even sinners can offer lawfully. It is different with the spiritual service to which the ordained are appointed, because thereby they are made to stand between God and the people. Wherefore they should shine with a good conscience before God, and with a good name before men. Reply to Objection 3: Certain medicines require a robust constitution, else it is mortally dangerous to take them; others can be given to the weakly. So too in spiritual things certain sacraments are ordained as remedies for sin, and the like are to be given to sinners, as Baptism and Penance, while others, which confer the perfection of grace, require a man made strong by grace. Whether knowledge of all Holy Writ is required?Objection 1: It would seem that knowledge of all Holy Writ is required. For one from whose lips we seek the law, should have knowledge of the law. Now the laity seek the law at the mouth of the priest (Malachi 2:7). Therefore he should have knowledge of the whole law.

• From Laid and Confused: Why We Tolerate Bad Sex and How to Stop (2023)

  3. PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE“It takes time and repetition to be a good communicator,” Sarah Casper told me. “It’s really hard to get that when you’re an adult. I still make mistakes, but I like to think that I make less than I did three years ago.” Part of being a good communicator is being a good listener. Don’t assume that you know what your partner wants without checking in with them; reject the myth that asking your partner what they want makes sex less sexy. Practice active listening in every part of your life, and practice giving your partner opportunities to speak up, by asking “Does this feel good for you?” To keep conversations productive, Laurie Mintz recommends starting sentences with “I” rather than “you,” which can come off as accusatory. “Contrast how you would react if your partner said ‘You never go down on me!’ with ‘I’d love you to go down on me more often,’” she said. “My guess is that the ‘you’ statement would result in you feeling attacked, defensive, or guilty. The ‘I’ statement, on the other hand, would hopefully be an entry into constructive dialogue.”11 If full sentences feel like too much, practice these words: “Faster.” “Slower.” “Harder.” “Softer.” “Yes.” “No.” “Ouch.” “Wrong hole.” To build confidence communicating outside of sexual contexts, Martin’s The Art of Receiving and Giving offers numerous low-stakes, sex-free exercises. One such exercise is the “Three Minute Game,” first developed by Harry Faddis, that I described earlier in the chapter. It requires two people who take turns asking two questions—“How do you want me to touch you for three minutes?” and “How do you want to touch me for three minutes?”—and the other person does the agreed-upon action for three minutes, only if they are willing. “When your partner asks what you want, pause to notice what sounds wonderful. Ask for it as directly as you can,” writes Martin. “When you ask your partner what they want and they tell you, pause again and notice, ‘Is this a gift I can give with a full heart?’ Set limits as needed.”

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  But I had no desire to kiss her. Sexually, I seemed to have been completely neutralized and only conventional thoughts rattled through my body that had lost all power of motion. Still, these thoughts knew what was expected of them and followed certain directives: the moment had been reached when a kiss was due. All the boasting reports made by my schoolmates had convinced me of this, so I remained with my right hand tightly grasping hers that held the pencil and my left hand around her neck. But our chairs were too far apart, though I would never have had the courage to draw them closer. In this rigid position, and from such an absurd distance, I thrust my head forward toward her mouth. I had almost reached her lips when she moved suddenly and withdrew her head, so that my lips met her cheek. This left me free; she had put an end to all of it, setting distinct limits to what she was ready to permit for this one day. Of course, I would never have taken such liberties had I not thought... I would never force her... Meanwhile, I had recovered some mastery over my own body and could control my thoughts again. I withdrew my right hand, then my left arm too. I rose from my chair and walked across the room. As if the electric current that fed it had been cut, I suddenly recovered from the tremor that had overpowered me ever since she had entered the room, though I had noticed it only now. I was back in the ordered world of everyday events, with my classmate Ginou. I had almost forgotten that Ginou had to be coached in composition. Walking up and down the room, I now began to explain things to her as one might to an audience of strangers in a lecture hall. Meanwhile, she took notes very actively and her pencil no longer scraped against the paper. I made a few wisecracks about that dumb cluck Hippolytus and his horrified surprise when his stepmother propositioned him, but otherwise we studied seriously and with great concentration. When we had finished the job, she asked me not to accompany her downstairs and I heard her footfalls grow fainter and fainter as she went down the stairs and left me alone. I was calm, but as if I had just recovered from a moment of drunkenness, of happy drunkenness that left me no hangover and no headache. “It’s the first time I have ever touched a girl,” I repeated to myself, “the first time, a girl...” I felt proud of myself, as if this had all been some kind of promotion or of admission into a world of initiates, and I came to a clear conclusion, that Ginou’s answer could only be interpreted as an admission of her love.