Some people think memoirs should be held to a perfect journalistic standard. Some people don't. Obviously I don't. My goal was never to create or to write a perfect journalistic standard of my life. It was always to be as literature.

For years I supported capital punishment, but I have come to believe that our criminal justice system is incapable of adequately distinguishing between the innocent and guilty. It is reprehensible and immoral to gamble with life and death.

On the other couch a women sits with a young boy looking through a picture book about Babar the Elephant. When I find a magazine and I lean back to start reading it, I can see the women watching me out of the corner of her eye. She moves closer to the child and she leans over and kisses his forehead. I know why she does it and i don't blame her.

She feels and she cries. It is to be admired.

Words can't say this. The one word love means too little for what it is. It means everything and that is still not enough.

To say that you can't see echoes of the past in what I do would be absurd. Everything that has preceded me has affected me.

It's cold and it's winter and the world has gone to sleep