Arabic is very twisting, very beautiful. The call to prayer is quite haunting; it almost makes you a believer on the spot.

He tries to picture how it will end, with an empty baseball field, a dark factory, and then over a brook in a dirt road, he doesn’t know. He pictures a huge vacant field of cinders and his heart goes hollow.

Each leaf that brushed his face deepened his sadness and dread. Each leaf he passed he'd never pass again. They rode over his face like veils, already some yellow, their veins like slender bones where the sun shone through them. He had resolved himself to ride on for he could not turn back and the world that day was as lovely as any day that ever was and he was riding to his death.

I'm a true believer in prayer, a big believer in prayer.

Write something beautiful and honest and that makes you very proud.

There's something very reassuring... about the written record.