They Did More Than Take

Jane Was My Wicked Stepmother: She Was Generous, Affectionate And Resourceful; She Salvaged My Schooling And I Owe Her An Unknowable Debt For That. One Flaw: Sometimes, Early On, She Would Tell Me Things Designed To Make Me Think Less Of My Mother, And I Would Wave Her Away, Saying, Jane, This Just Backfires And Makes Me Think Less Of You.

What Did Nabokov And Joyce Have In Common, Apart From The Poor Teeth And The Great Prose? Exile, And Decades Of Near Pauperism.

Someone Watches Over Us When We Write. Mother. Teacher. Shakespeare. God.

Life Is Made Of Fear. Some People Eat Fear Soup Three Times A Day. Some People Eat Fear Soup All The Meals There Are. I Eat It Sometimes. When They Bring Me Fear Soup To Eat, I Try Not To Eat It, I Try To Send It Back. But Sometimes I'm Too Afraid To And Have To Eat It Anyway.

Like Fundamentalist Judaism And Medieval Christianity, Islam Is Totalist. That Is To Say, It Makes A Total Claim On The Individual.