Please, please, please, please, please...,", squeezing his eyes shut because it somehow made the words more pure.

And I suppose tapes are a desperate attempt to steal something from Death's suitcase.

Soon man will count all his days, and then smaller segments of the day, and then smaller still—until the counting consumes him, and the wonder of the world he has been given is lost.

The truth is, there is no line. There's only your life, how you mess it up, and who is there to save you. Or who isn't.

You have to work at creating your own culture.

I find interesting characters or lessons that resonate with people and sometimes I write about them in the sports pages, sometimes I write them in a column, sometimes in a novel, sometimes a play or sometimes in nonfiction. But at the core I always say to myself, 'Is there a story here? Is this something people want to read?'

The fact is, there is no foundation, no secure ground, upon which people may stand today if it isn’t the family. If you don’t have the support and love and caring and concern that you get from a family, you don’t have much at all. Love is so supremely important. As our great poet Auden said, ‘Love each other or perish’.