Stories hold power because they convey the illusion that life has purpose and direction. Where God is absent from the lives of all but the most blessed, the writer, of all people, replaces that ordering principle. Stories make sense when so much around us is senseless, and perhaps what makes them most comforting is that, while life goes on and pain goes on, stories do us the favor of ending.
John HodgmanElwyn Brooks White was a very Maine personality which is, "I hate everyone and everyone stay away from me."
John HodgmanI made an impulse buy of a house in Maine to make my wife happy and now have gone back into debt and it's all started over for me.
John Hodgman