Words of the hero: "I am my fate.

Now, Mr. Antonio. I understand that there are people who are close to you who want me dead.___o, mija. They don__ want you dead.___hen explain this._ I handed him the picture.He chuckled again.__o, they don__ want you dead. That would be too easy. They want revenge.__old sweat broke out all over me, but I kept my face calm. I looked at him straight in the eye.__ell, then they are going to be quite disappointed, aren__ they?_ I flashed my teeth at him.__enorita, you might want to warn Senor Smith, you see, my nephew he doesn__ like to share, and if he sees another man after you, he__l get very, eh, aggressive._ The silver fox looked at me and winked.__h, he won__ have to worry._ I said as I was walking out the door. __ doubt he will be alive long enough to know Agent Smith.__hen I slammed the door.

Wilbur looked at the list glumly. "Are you sure you need all this stuff?""Yep.""The ax?""The ax is critical.""The c

I think of what it means to be a teenager in America, necessarily pushing boundaries, making expected mistakes. Here there is no margin for error: a mistake, no matter how insignificant, dashes any small hopes to break the cycle of poverty. Here in Kibera the world is relentless and unforgiving.

I used to read in books how our fathers persecuted mankind. But I never appreciated it. I did not really appreciate the infamies that have been committed in the name of religion, until I saw the iron arguments that Christians used. I saw the Thumbscrew__wo little pieces of iron, armed on the inner surfaces with protuberances, to prevent their slipping; through each end a screw uniting the two pieces. And when some man denied the efficacy of baptism, or may be said, 'I do not believe that a fish ever swallowed a man to keep him from drowning,' then they put his thumb between these pieces of iron and in the name of love and universal forgiveness, began to screw these pieces together. When this was done most men said, 'I will recant.' Probably I should have done the same. Probably I would have said: 'Stop; I will admit anything that you wish; I will admit that there is one god or a million, one hell or a billion; suit yourselves; but stop.'But there was now and then a man who would not swerve the breadth of a hair. There was now and then some sublime heart, willing to die for an intellectual conviction. Had it not been for such men, we would be savages to-night. Had it not been for a few brave, heroic souls in every age, we would have been cannibals, with pictures of wild beasts tattooed upon our flesh, dancing around some dried snake f

If this was mental illness, or even just a particularly clinical case of adolescence, I was bearing up pretty well.