She says what holds their marriage together is that she feels too damn sorry for him to ask for a divorce.

Besides, I can't get to where I want to go by conscious or unconscious suicide. I've got my strange little life to lead. Leading it the best I can - that's how I buy the ticket to where I want to be.

Too many dogs continue to be abused and abandond - one is too many - and people continue to kill people for money and envy and no reason at all. Bad people succeed and good people fail, but that's not the end of the story. Miracles happen that nobody sees, and among us walk heroes who are never recognised, and people live in loneliness because they cannot believe they are loved

Home is the first refuge from - and last defense against - the disappointments and the terrors of life.

Life is a train ride, and at the many stations along the route, people important to us debark, never to get aboard again, until by the end of the journey, we sit in a passenger car where most of the seats are empty.

The functions of intellect are insufficient without courage, love, friendship, compassion and empathy.

He once told me that an August evening was "as hot as three toads in a Cuisinart," a comparison that left me blinking two days later.