B is for Beer

By Tom Robbins

"Costa Rica is downstairs from Mexico. With your mother's help, you can locate it in Volume C of that old encyclopedia that used to provide your bedtime stories. What the map won't tell you is that Costa Rica has done more to preserve its natural environment than any country on Earth, and that it has no army. No navy. No air force. It's hard to believe, isn't it, that any modern government could be that enlightened or any modern population that civilized? Since their government also guarantees free health care, and since it's reasonable to assume they aren't tying their shoes too tight down there, Madeline's business prospects may be limited, but, hey,it's personal freedom not hundred dollar bills that lights the soul's cigar, and I hope they're teaching you that in kindergarten."

Your Face Never Lies

By Michio Kushi

"In addition to points on the meridians we can look for areas where there is swelling or stiffness, discoloration or excessive body hair. Some of these areas are on the meridians, some lie over the organs themselves. The following two drawings show several such areas on the front and back of the body."

Paths of Desire

By Dominique Browning

" Leonard and I were walking through the yard early one morning at the beginning of winter, reviewing the possibilities ahead one last time before the cold settled in seriously. His crew had delivered enough firewood to see me trough the Ice Age. I was (of course) adding to our book-length list of what would go where, haggling over what to keep, what to transplant. We had started laying out the outlines of the new beds with colorful cords I had bought at the hardware store. With every walk-through, the shapes of the beds changed, but I knew I had the Winter of Last Dayreams ahead of me to mull it all over. Leonard was fun to talk to. He was entering a boyish middle-age; he was overstressed; and, as he constantly told me, the demands of the business were taking a toll on his wife, and on his heart. (Why do men worry so about their hearts? They all do, even twelve-year-old men -- their hearts and their knees.)"

Lost Horizon

By James Hilton

"Conway said quietly: 'If you'd had all the experiences I've had, you'd know that there are times in life when the most comfortable thing to do is nothing at all. Things happen to you and you just let them happen, The war was rather like that. One is fortunate if, as on this occasion, a touch of novelty seasons the unpleasantness.'"