One of my problems with terrorism is that it's self-evidently bad. The main thing that makes it complicated is the fact that it works. When you go at it with a moral hammer, it's really, really bad. It's so bad you wouldn't believe it because you don't accomplish anything. I think the one thing terrorists themselves are vulnerable to is mockery. It's an excellent weapon.

Funny how the nature of a normal day is the first memory to fade.

Kevin was a shell game in which all three cups were empty.

No eleven-year-old has any real grasp of death. He doesn't have any real concept of other people--that they feel pain, even that they exist. And his own adult future isn't real to him, either. Makes it that much easier to throw away.

It isn't very nice to admit, but domestic violence has its uses. So raw and unleashed, it tears away the veil of civilization that comes between us as much as it makes life possible. A poor substitute for the sort of passion we like to extol perhaps, but real love shares more in common with hatred and rage than it does with geniality or politeness.

Giving anyone anything takes courage, since so many presents backfire. A gift conspicuously at odds with your tastes serves only to betray that the benefactor has no earthly clue who you are.

Worse, the deadly accuracy of filial faultfinding is facilitated by access, by trust, by willing disclosure, and so constitutes a double betrayal.