Writing is such a damn lonely sickness.

The most malicious god is the god of the counted chicken.

Only professional diplomats, inveterate idiots and women view diplomacy as a long-term substitute for war.

- This isn't an interrogation or a trail. Your version of the truth is the only thing that matters. -Truth is singular. It's 'versions' are mistruths.

But no, we cross, crisscross, and recross our old tracks like figure skaters.

Three or four times only in my youth did I glimpse the Joyous Isles, before they were lost to fogs, depressions, cold fronts, ill winds, and contrary tides... I mistook them for adulthood. Assuming they were a fixed feature in my life's voyage, I neglected to record their latitude, their longitude, their approach. Young ruddy fool. What wouldn't I give now for a never-changing map of the ever-constant ineffable? To possess, as it were, an atlas of clouds.

We are both busy people, so let's cut the small talk.