That's what you do when the curtain is falling--you give the line that the audience wants to hear.

A child has little defense against the sight of a parent laid low. Parents, like the earth beneath our feet and the sun above our heads, are immutable objects, eternal and reliable. If one should fall, who might vouch the sun itself won't fall, burning, into the sea?

Human beings are remarkably resilient. When you think about it, our species has been teetering upon the edge of the existential cliff since Hiroshima. In short, we endure.

There are things that are too terrible to remember, and there are things that are almost too wonderful to recall.

Yes, my dear child, monsters are real. I happen to have one hanging in my basement.

Afterward I told his widow, "Your husband is dead, but at least he died laughing.' I think she took some comfort in that. It is the second-best way to die, Will Henry." He did not say what the best way was.

Perhaps God waits for us to be empty, so he may fill us with himself.