These stories are ghosts, bringing people back from the dead. Just for a moment. For a visit. Every story is a ghost.

Waiters will always pee in soup, people will always fall in love.

I am the child of a lunatic. Not a child of God.

Really, just looking around, you feel a twinge of pity for the poor souls who succeeded in getting past the Pearly Gates. One can't help but picture the lackluster VIP lounge in Heaven, a kind of nonalcoholic ice-cream social starring Harriet Beecher Stowe and Mahatma Gandhi. Hardly anyone's idea of a "with-it" social register.

There's no escaping fate, it just keeps going. Day and night, the future just keeps coming at you.

Sex pretty much cures everything.

The liberator who destroys my property is fighting to save my spirit. The teacher who clears all possessions from my path will set me free.