however long we have to live, there are never enough springs.

I am fifty years old and I have never known what it is to love. I can write those words, know them to be true, but feel only the regret that a tone-deaf man must feel because he can't appreicate music, a regret less keen because it is for something never known, not for something lost.

Not so much two ships passing in the night as two ships sailing together for a time but always bound for different ports.

Most of my life I have needed more time to be on my own.

Human kindness is like a defective tap, the first gush may be impressive but the stream soon dries up.

Can we ever break free of the devices and desires of our own hearts? Might not our conscience be telling us what we most want to hear?

It was reasonable to struggle, to suffer, perhaps even to die, for a more just, a more compassionate society, but not in a world with no future where, all to soon, the very words "justice," "compassion," "society," "struggle," "evil," would be unheard echoes on an empty air.