The very idea of carrying my memory into eternity devastated me, and I took refuge in atheism.

Despair is sometimes the great energizer of the mind, though sometimes its flowering may be sterile.

One, if one is sensible, blames government, not the servers of government, not those entangled in their governments.

I never deviated from my grim determination to someday have all the money I needed and wanted.

Mankind adores its betrayers, and murders its saviors.

I am not alone at all, I thought. I was never alone at all. And that, of course, is the message of Christmas. We are never alone. Not when the night is darkest, the wind coldest, the world seemingly most indifferent. For this is still the time God chooses.

Are we not all desperate one way or another?