Paul Ryan, he is the real evil genius of the Republican party. He with his little hateful widow's peak and his smirky, snarly, simpering non-entity self, that's who I detest. Trump's just a moron, but Ryan is ugly and evil.

The pace of life feels morally dangerous to me.

At heart, of course, a story itself is consolation's instrument.

For a time after my divorce everything began to seem profoundly ironic to me. I found myself thinking of other peoples' worries as sources of amusement and private derision which I thought about at night to make myself feel better.

America beats on you so hard the whole time. You are constantly being pummeled by other people's rights and their sense of patriotism.

And I think that in myself (and perhaps evident in what I write) fear of loss and the corresponding instinct to protect myself against loss are potent forces.

Any rainy summer morning, of course, has the seeds of gloomy alienation sown in. But a rainy summer morning far from home - when your personal clouds don't move but hang - can easily produce the feeling of the world as seen from the grave. This I know.