That's All We Have, Finally,

A Man Can Go Along Obeying All The Rules And Then It Don't Matter A Damn Anymore.

My Life Is Going To Change. I Feel It.

There Is No God, And Conversation Is A Dying Art.

This Is Awful. I Don't Know What's Going To Happen To Me Or To Anyone Else In The World.

If We're Lucky, Writer And Reader Alike, We'll Finish The Last Line Or Two Of A Short Story And Then Just Sit For A Minute, Quietly. Ideally, We'll Ponder What We've Just Written Or Read; Maybe Our Hearts Or Intellects Will Have Been Moved Off The Peg Just A Little From Where They Were Before. Our Body Temperature Will Have Gone Up, Or Down, By A Degree. Then, Breathing Evenly And Steadily Once More, We'll Collect Ourselves, Writers And Readers Alike, Get Up, "created Of Warm Blood And Nerves" As A Chekhov Character Puts It, And Go On To The Next Thing: Life. Always Life.