Pain and darkness have been our lot since the Fall of Man. But there must be some hope that we can rise to a higher level ... that consciousness can evolve to a plane more benevolent than its counterpoint of a universe hardwired to indifference.

This is every writer's nightmare - the sudden breakdown of meaning in the language that sustains and supports us.

It no longer matters who consider themselves the masters of events. Events no longer obey their masters.

Love is nothing but lust misspelled.

Luckily, even as a young man not yet become himself, John Bridgens had two things besides indecision that kept him from self-destruction - books and a sense of irony.

Words were like objects, making the idea more solid -- less a poisonous gas and more a ... cube of crystallized thought.

The future is like smoke from a burning forest, waiting for the wind of specific events and personal courage to blow the sparks and embers of reality this way or that.