Overnight I became a cottage industry.

You learn about gratitude by giving. You learn about humility by receiving, and in the pecking order of human qualities, I'd probably put humility somewhere before gratitude.

I had led a private life and wanted to die a private death.

It would be ugly to watch people poking sticks at a caged rat. It is uglier still to watch rats poking sticks at a caged person.

Overnight I became a cottage industry.

Loving an old bachelor is always a no-win situation, and you come to terms with that early on, or you go away.

The prison guards are capable of committing daily atrocities and obscenities, smiling the smile of the angels all the while.