in the United States ... given the cult of eternal youth, age is ignored unless it can be sentimentalized.

No matter how expected, death is always the ultimate surprise.

guilt politics ... I regard as conveniently paralyzing, ripe for backlash defensiveness, counterproductive, and boring.

Hate generalizes; love specifies. Or: The movements of hatred are toward generalization; love's movements are toward specification.

I still gasp at the revealing lingo for weapons: erector launchers, thrust ratios; my teeth grind reflexively when Dubya sputters Eye-Rack and Eye-Ran have 'nookyular capabacity.

Clarity of language is the first casualty of authoritarianism.

Don't accept rides from strange men, and remember that all men are strange.