I'm interested in the hope we invest in science, and the disappointment we can feel when science flattens, or 'explains,' the larger mysteries of religion.

Slamming the book shut produces a wind on the face, a weather that is copyrighted by the author, and this wind may not be deployed without permission, nor may the pages be turned without express written permission.

RHETORIC The art of making life less believable; the calculated use of language, not to alarm but to do full harm to our busy minds and properly dispose our listeners to a pain they have never dreamed of. The context of what can be known establishes that love and indifference are forms of language, but the wise addition of punctuation allows us to believe that there are other harms - the dash gives the reader the clear signal they are coming.

I'm an enormous fan of Thomas Bernhard's books, and I like the relentless feeling in his work - the pursuit of darkness, the negative - and I think in some sense I've internalised that as what one is supposed to do.

To refrain from storytelling is perhaps one of the highest forms of respect we can pay. Those people, with no stories to circle them, can die without being misunderstood.

A misspelled word is probably an alias for some desperate call for aid, which is bound to fail.

Spelling is a way to make words safe, at least for now, until another technology appears to soften attacks launched from the mouth.