Don't think of yourself as a surrogate mule, think of yourself as an entrepreneur of the physical.

In spite of the strife the stars were bright as crystal.

The generalizing writer is like the passionate drunk, stumbling into your house mumbling: I know I'm not being clear, exactly, but don't you kind of feel what I'm feeling?

What good the prophet in the wilderness may do is incremental and personal. It's good for us to hear someone speak the irrational truth. It's good for us when, in spite of all of the sober, pragmatic, and even correct arguments that war is sometimes necessary someone says: war is large-scale murder, us at our worst, the stupidest guy doing the cruelest thing to the weakest being.

It's like parents choosing to raise their own standard of living rather than to provide for the future of their kids. You wouldn't consider that very admirable would you?

The sky, at sunset, looked like a carnivorous flower.