People pontificate, "Suicide is selfishness." Career churchmen like Pater go a step further and call in a cowardly assault on the living. Oafs argue this specious line for varying reason: to evade fingers of blame, to impress one's audience with one's mental fiber, to vent anger, or just because one lacks the necessary suffering to sympathize. Cowardice is nothing to do with it - suicide takes considerable courage. Japanese have the right idea. No, what's selfish is to demand another to endure an intolerable existence, just to spare families, friends, and enemies a bit of soul-searching.

Truth is singular. Its 'versions' are mistruths.

It's true, reading too many novels makes you go blind.

The soul is a verb." He impales a lit candle on a spike. "Not a noun.

Little girls are like old cats. If they don't like you nothing on Earth will make them pretend to.

Write something every single day, even if it's just three lines. And it doesn't matter if it's any good - just write something every day.

Words are what you fight with but what you fight about is whether or not you're afraid of them.