Faith is a great thing, and really religious people would like us to believe that faith and knowing are the same thing, but I don't believe that myself. Because there are too many different ideas on the subject. What we know is this: When we die, one of two things happens. Either our souls and thoughts somehow survive the experience of dying or they don't. If they do, that opens up every possibility you could think of. If they don't, it's just blotto. The end.

The kids accepted my drinking as a part of life. Not a particularly pernicious part. I didn't beat up on them. Basically I don't think I was so different from a lot of dads who have three or four martinis when they get in from work, wine with dinner and so on.

Death was no less a miracle than birth.

no one dies happy, you can only die well

I hope you liked them, Reader; that they did for you what any good story should do--make you forget the real stuff weighing on your mind for a little while and take you away to a place you've never been. It's the most amiable sort of magic I know.

Everything that goes around comes around, they say, and although I've never been able to figure out who the mysteriously wise sages known as "they" might be, they're certainly right when it comes to time-travel.

If I have to spend time in purgatory before going to one place or the other, I guess I'll be all right as long as there's a lending library.