The Labors of Hercules Beal

by Gary D. Schmidt

“It takes time to learn to love your home again after you’ve been away,” Mr.

“You can tell a lot about someone when the right light is from the stars.”

Sometimes being still is the hardest thing to do—but in fact, the most productive.

“Courage is shown in what we do, not in what we’re feeling.

Unless you are William Shakespeare, coining new words is an arrogant and cocky thing to do—and

Good writing is never done by the numbers. It is so much more subtle and evocative than mathematics.

power is dissipated by repetition.

he wanted to give happiness to others. He once gave away a jacket from Joe Pepitone to a kid he didn’t even like very much, because that kid was

sort

of beat up and moving away. My friend was killed in a car accident not long after that, but even though many years have gone by since then, I try to ask myself what my friend would have done when I come to any sort of crossroads. And I think, he ...

Maybe art tells the truth best when it admits our mortality.

“Sarcasm is the refuge of the barbarian,”

Here’s what happens in a family business when someone looks at you the way that Achilles was looking at me. It isn’t just him looking. It’s my father, and my grandfather, and my great-great-grandfather Elias and great-great-grandmother Elene and my great-great-granduncle Elijah, who are all looking out of Achilles’s eyes. And they’re all trying to learn to let go just a little bit. It isn’t easy, but they’re trying.