I was obsessed with religious questions, the basics: Why are we here? Why is the world so beautiful?

I broke with my religion in college.

It's an awful truth that suffering can deepen us, give a greater lustre to our colours, a richer resonance to our words.

The NRA disgraced itself this morning with a self-serving press event in which they demonized the media and the entertainment industry for gun violence in America, and advocated a national data base for all mentally ill persons. They apparently want armed guards in all American schools, and it seems, armed volunteers as well. Shocking.

I was at a loss suddenly; but conscious all the while of how Armand listened; that he listened in the way that we dream of others listening, his face seeming to reflect on every thing said. He did not start forward to seize on my slightest pause, to assert an understanding of something before the thought was finished, or to argue with a swift, irresistible impulse -- the things which often make dialogue impossible. And after a long interval he said, 'I want you. I want you more than anything in the world.

Was it fair to say I didn't know the full state of my soul?

I saw finally the futility of all these gestures, that witchcraft is but a matter of focus-that one cann apply one's fierce and immeasurable energies to an act of choice.