Contradictory strands create an essay that's richly ambivalent.

Indeed, at times it's best to shut up.

I imagined a psychic pain growing inside him (myself) that demanded some physical outlet. Suicide must have been his attempt to give Pain a body, a representation, to put it outside himself. A need to convert inner torment into some outward tangible wound that all could see. It was almost as though suicide were a last-ditch effort at exorcism, in which the person sacrificed his life in order that the devil inside might die.

I really do like to write and when I'm not, I think, "Okay, I'll be a good citizen now" but fact is, that's secondary.

The prospect of a long day at the beach makes me panic. There is no harder work I can think of than taking myself off to somewhere pleasant, where I am forced to stay for hours and 'have fun'.

I'm fortunate in being able to find great satisfaction in my work.

I've had an enduring appreciation of psychology.