He was near tears, 'Who do I blame?' he kept asking me. 'There is no God.I can only blame myself.'" The Reb's face tightened, as if in pain. "That," he said, softly, "is a terrible self-indictment." Worse than an unanswered prayer? "Oh yes. It is far more comforting to think God listened and said no, than to think that nobody's out there.

What is it about childhood that never lets you go, even when you're so wrecked it's hard to believe you ever were a child?

We all have same beginning (BIRTH), and we will have same ending (DEATH). So how different can we be?

Take one story, viewed from two different angles. It is the same day, the same moment, but one angle ends happily... and the other ends badly.

The years after graduation hardened me into someone quite different from the strutting graduate who left campus that day headed for New York city, ready to offer the world his talent. The world, I discovered. was not all that interested.

Please do not leave me, he thought. He could not bear a world without Alli. He realized how much he relied on her from morning until night. She was his only conversation. His only smile. She prepared their meager food and always offered it to him first, even though he insisted she eat before he did. THey leaned on each other at sunsets. Holding her as they slept felt like his last connection to humanity.

I believe the biggest themes of life are put into the best focus when held up against the very sharp light of mortality.