You were always uncomfortable with the rhetoric of emotion, which is quite a different matter from discomfort with emotion itself.

But indifference would ultimately commend itself as a devastating weapon.

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

Many, if not most, countries blithely expect their citizens to have carte blanche access to the U.S., "land of immigrants," as a veritable human right, but put up all manner of barriers to Americans who want to emigrate in the opposite direction.

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.

Teachers were both blamed for everything that went wrong with kids and turned to for their every salvation. This dual role of scapegoat and savior was downright messianic but even Jesus was probably paid better.

The discovery that heartbreak is indeed heartbreaking consoles us about our humanity.