Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: you're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself.

I wanted to go free, to be liberated once and for all from these two enemies, the body and the soul. I wanted to be a cloud. To be a stone on the surface of the moon.

ABSTRICTED  (ABSTRI'CTED)   part. adj.[abstrictus, Lat.] Unbound.Dict.

For me, being raised in a free America made all the difference.

Mary!—we poor creatures of earth are stumbling over our freedoms, fumbling over our choices. Millions of us are seeking to give up their freedom—some by repudiating it, because of the burden of their guilt—some, by surrendering it to the moods and fashions of the time—others, by absorption into Communism, where there is only one will, which is the dictator's, and where the only love is hate and revolution!

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

I didn't write much until I turned 40. Up until then I felt constrained by a sense of the discipline of New Testament studies and a sense of the ruling elite in theology and biblical studies.

Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.

Here is what I'd like to tell. I'd like to tell a story about how Moira escaped, for good this time. Or if I couldn't tell that, I'd like to say she blew up Jezebel's, with fifty Commanders inside it. I'd like her to end with something daring and spectacular, some outrage, something that would befit her. But as far as I know that didn't happen. I don't know how she ended, or even if she did, because I never saw her again.

But feelings can't be ignored, no matter how unjust or ungrateful they seem. I long to ride a bike, dance, whistle, look at the world, feel young and know that I'm free, and yet I can't let it show.

This is because having to obey one concept of right is inherently unjust. God has given each of us a unique sense of right, so when we are forced to live under someone else's for years and years, we run the risk of losing our own. But not everyone can be crushed. Sooner or later the longing for freedom is bound to assert itself.

Let's borrow life preservers and jump over. I think we should do something spectacular. I feel that all our lives have been too restrained.