As for the depiction of the Catholic church, it's not meant to be a prediction

Laws had a bad habit of being ignored or abrogated when societal push came to totalitarian shove.

The life of a poet lies not merely in the finite language-dance of expression but in the nearly infinite combinations of perception and memory combined with the sensitivity to what is perceived and remembered.

As long as my sixth graders showed an average improvement of five years, the principal and district pretty much left me alone to create my own curriculum and teach whatever I wanted

I loved almost everything about being a teacher, but I was an unusual teacher

You treat violence as an aberration ... when in truth it is the norm. It is the very essence of the human condition.

In the end--when all else is dust--loyalty to those we love is all we can carry with us to the grave. Faith--true faith--was trusting in that love.