We are not the only animal that mourns; apes do, and elephants, and dogs. Yet we are the only one that tortures.

Book burnings. Always the forerunners. Heralds of the stake, the ovens, the mass graves.

And so, as generally happens, those who have most give least, and those with less somehow make shrift to share.

The day in 2004 when the radiologist told me I had invasive cancer, I walked down the hospital corridor looking for a phone to call my husband, and I could almost see the fear coming toward me like a big, black shadow.

I do believe that our modern English usage has become way too clipped and austere. I have been reading excerpts from the journals of 18th-century seafarers lately, and even the lowliest press-ganged deck-swabber turns a finer phrase than I do most days.

I took the T from Logan airport to Harvard Square. I hate driving in Boston. It's the traffic that drives me spare, and the absolutely terrible manners of the motorists. Other New Englanders refer to Massachusetts drivers as "Massholes.

Despair is a cavern beneath our feet and we teeter on its very brink.