They know your name, address, telephone number, credit card numbers, who ELSE is driving the car "for insurance", ... your driver's license number. In the state of Massachusetts, this is the same number as that used for Social Security, unless you object to such use. In THAT case, you are ASSIGNED a number and you reside forever more on the list of "weird people who don't give out their Social Security Number in Massachusetts."

One had the right to write because other people needed news of the inner world, and if they went too long without such news they would go mad with the chaos of their lives.

He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid.

I cannot sleep for dreaming; I cannot dream but I wake and walk about the house as though I'd find you coming through some door.

most of the time we settle for half and i like it better, even as i know how wrong he was and his death useless, i tremble for i confess that something peversley pure calls to me from his memory

A character is defined by the kinds of challenges he cannot walk away from. And by those he has walked away from that cause him remorse.

It may be that even if half consciously, we choose our personalities to maintain a certain saving balance in the family's little universe.