We are the bright new stars born of a screaming black hole, the nascent suns burst from the darkness, from the grasping void of space that folds and swallows--a darkness that would devour anyone not as strong as we. We are oddities, sideshows, talk show subjects. We capture everyone's imagination.

There is no faith like the faith of a builder of homes in coastal Louisiana

Tim O'Brien's book about Vietnam, The Things They Carried, has won every award, is studied in college and is considered to be definitive. But it's fiction.

This boy thinks I am not of his species, that I am some other kind of creature, one that can be crushed under the weight of a phone book. The pain is not great, but the symbolism is disagreeable.

You're breaking out of character, again.

Humans are divided between those who can still look through the eyes of youth and those who cannot.

I have no idea how people function without near-constant internal chaos. I'd lose my mind.