Randa Abdel-Fattah
Randa Abdel-Fattah

The world of adolescence was all I was interested in exploring, I suppose because there is no other period in your life when you feel as intensely. Love, hate, jealousy, loyalty: I remember the power of these emotions as a teenager and how navigating questions of identity at the same time was truly terrifying and exhilarating. Writing in that moment of a person’s life has always felt so right to

me.

Randa Abdel-Fattah
Randa Abdel-Fattah

The relationship between reader and writer in fiction is steeped in vulnerabilities. It really does require trust and faith because some books have the power to transform people. You feel like you can never go back, look at the world in the same way again. And that grand ambition is what I hope to do with my books because at the heart of my writing is a passion for telling stories of the

oppressed, the marginalized, and the misunderstood.

Hafsat Abiola
Hafsat Abiola

Unlike the small community, where every person lives in the illusion of having the same ideals, beliefs, and values as everyone else, in the larger context of plural communities — be it in country, continent, or globe — we live in the illusion of absolute difference.

Abrahám
Abrahám

Durch den Glauben opferte Abraham den Isaak, da er versucht ward, und gab dahin den Eingeborenen, da er schon die Verheißungen empfangen hatte, von welchem gesagt war: "In Isaak wird dir dein Same genannt werden"; und dachte, Gott kann auch wohl von den Toten auferwecken; daher er auch ihn zum Vorbilde wiederbekam.

J. J. Abrams
J. J. Abrams

When I was a kid and saw Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope for the first time, it blew my mind and around the same time, I had friends who were huge fans of Star Trek and I don’t know if I was smart enough to get it, or patient enough. What I loved about Star Wars was the visceral energy of it, the clarity of it, the kind of innocence and big heart of it. Star Trek always felt a little bit more

sophisticated and philosophical, debating moral dilemmas and things that were theoretically interesting, but for some reason I couldn’t get on board. It really took working with all these guys and actually working on Star Trek for me to fall in love with that.

Mumia Abu-Jamal
Mumia Abu-Jamal

Once again, my family and I find ourselves being assaulted by the obscenity that is Mumia Abu-Jamal. On Sunday October 5th, my husband's killer will once again air his voice from what masquerades as a prison, and spew his thoughts and ideas at another college commencement. Mumia Abu-Jamal will be heard and honored as a victim and a hero by a pack of adolescent sycophants at Goddard College in

Vermont. Despite the fact that 33 years ago, he loaded his gun with special high-velocity ammunition designed to kill in the most devastating fashion, then used that gun to rip my husband's freedom from him--today, Mumia Abu-Jamal will be lauded as a freedom fighter. Undoubtedly the administrators at Goddard who first accepted, then enthusiastically supported Abu-Jamal as their speaker will be

moved by his "important message" when, if one distills that message to its basic meaning, it amounts to nothing more than the same worn out hatred for this country and everyone in law enforcement that Mumia Abu-Jamal has harbored his entire life. Many at Goddard College have said that this is a matter of Abu-Jamal's First Amendment right to speak and be heard. What a convenient way to dodge their

responsibility to take a moral position on this situation. This is not a matter of First Amendment rights -- it's a matter of right and wrong. Across the country, people have been voicing their disgust with the wrong that the college is about to commit by allowing a convicted cop-killer to speak to them. Is this the message to be heard? How could they allow him to speak when Danny no longer has a

voice? It is my opinion that all murderers should forfeit their right to free speech when they take the life of an innocent person. I have repeatedly seen college administrators deny conservative and religious speakers access to their campuses when even the tiniest minority feel their message is in some way offensive. What could be more offensive than having a person who violently took the life of

another imparting his "unique perspective" on your students? Let's be honest. The instructors, administrators and graduates at Goddard College embrace having this killer as their commencement speaker not despite the fact that he brutally murdered a cop, but because he brutally murdered a cop. Otherwise, like so many other speakers that have been denied access to college campuses across the

country, Goddard's administration would have lived up to their moral responsibility and pulled the plug on this travesty long ago. Shame on Goddard College and all associated with that school for choosing to honor an arrogant remorseless killer as their commencement speaker. Unfortunately, this is something that I am certain they will be proud of for the rest of their lives.

Anna Andrejewna Achmatowa
Anna Andrejewna Achmatowa

It's all the same to me. The Yenisei swirls,
the North Star shines, as it will shine forever;
and the blue lustre of my loved one's eyes
is clouded over by the final horror.
— The House on the Fontanka, 19 August 1939

Kathy Acker
Kathy Acker

Writing is what I did when I was alone with no one watching me or telling me what to do. I could do whatever I wanted. So writing was really associated with body pleasure — it was the same thing. It was like the only thing I had.

Kathy Acker
Kathy Acker

The German Romantics had to destroy the same bastions we do.

Russell Ackoff
Russell Ackoff

Despite the importance of systems concepts and the attention that they have received and are receiving, we do not yet have a unified or integrated set (i. e., a system) of such concepts. Different terms are used to refer to the same thing and the same term is used to refer to different things. This state is aggravated by the fact that the literature of systems research is widely dispersed and is

therefore difficult to track. Researchers in a wide variety of disciplines and interdisciplines are contributing to the conceptual development of the systems sciences but these contributions are not as interactive and additive as they might be.