If God is an author and the universe is the biggest novel ever written, I may feel as if I'm the lead character in the story, but like every man and woman on Earth, I am a suporting player in one of billions of subplots. You know what happens to supporting players. Too often they are killed off in chapter 3, or in chapter 10, or in chapter 35. A supporting player always has to be looking over his shoulder.

Or maybe they were just doing it for fun. A lark. Their religion is tolerant of extreme forms of recreation. Boys will be boys, after all, and sociopathic boys will be sociopathic.

Then what are you? An electronic Hannibal Lector? You can't eat my liver with fava beans through a modem, you know.

Pain can be endured and defeated only if it is embraced. Denied or feared, it grows.

Out of sight above the house, the mirror moon reflected the sun of a day not yet dawned, shining the pale light of tomorrow on the yard and on the paper birches.

One of the greatest gifts we receive from dogs is the tenderness they evoke in us

I see dead people. But, then by God, I do something about it!