All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.

Are you seeing anyone romantically?" he inquired. "No, I'm not," she replied. "Good. Please keep it that way. Because I intend to ask you to marry me.

In college, I had a course in Latin, and one day the word "divorce" came up. I always figured it came from some root that meant "divide." In truth, it comes from "divertere," which means "to divert." I believe that. All divorce does is divert you, taking you away from everything you thought you knew and everything you thought you wanted and steering you into all kinds of other stuff, like discussions about your mother's girdle and whether she should marry someone else.

when your time came, it came, and that was that. You might say something smart on your way out, but you might just as easily say something stupid.

Your voice will come. We all go through the same thing. You cannot talk when you first arrive." He smiled. "It helps you listen.

When death takes your mother, it steals that word forever.

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