Ever since the Christmas of 1953, I have felt that the yuletide is a special hell for those families who have suffered any loss or who must admit to any imperfection; the so-called spirit of giving can be as greedy as receiving-Christmas is our time to be aware of what we lack, of who's not home.

when however small a measure of jealousy is mixed with misunderstanding, there is always going to be trouble.

She sat keenly white and still among them, a witness to everything--maybe determining nothing, possibly judging it all.

Everybody dies … The thing is, to have a life before we die.

There was no manifestation of contemporary culture that did not indicate to my grandmother how steadfast was the nation's decline, how merciless our mental and moral deterioration, how swiftly all-embracing our final decadence. I never saw her read a book again; but she referred to books often - as if they were shrines and cathedrals of learning that television had plundered and then abandoned.

We permit bad taste in this country. In fact, we even encourage it - and reward it in all manner of ways.

Don’t you understand?” he would say, “You imagine the story better than I remember it.