These are the days after. Everything now is measured by after.

Writers in repressive societies are considered dangerous. That's why so many of them are in jail.

The modern meaning of life's end-when does it end? How does it end? How should it end? What is the value of life? How do we measure it?

There's something nearly mystical about certain words and phrases that float through our lives. It's computer mysticism. Words that are computer generated to be used on products that might be sold anywhere from Japan to Denmark - words devised to be pronounceable in a hundred languages. And when you detach one of these words from the product it was designed to serve, the words acquires a chantlike quality.

The world isn't going to be destroyed, but you don't feel safe anymore in your plane or train or office or auditorium.

I've come to think of Europe as a hardcover book, America as the paperback version.

The question of dying becomes a wise reminder. It cures us of our innocence of the future.