There had to be something wrong with my life. I should have been born a Yugoslavian shepherd who looked up at the Big Dipper every night.

As with marathon runs and lengths of toilet paper, there had to be standards to measure up to.

The ground we stand on looks solid enough, but if something happens it can drop right out from under you.

If you really want to know what's happening here and now, you've got to use your own eyes and your own judgment.

Then when dusk began to settle he would retrace his steps, back to his own world. And on the way home, a loneliness would always claim his heart. He could never quite get a grip on what it was. It just seemed that whatever lay waiting "out there" was all too vast, too overwhelming for him to possibly ever make a dent in.

But I didn't understand then. That I could hurt somebody so badly she would never recover. That a person can, just by living, damage another human being beyond repair.

What the world needs is a set villain that people can point at and say, “It’s all your fault!