Dying Was Just An Extended Version Of

Insanity's So Personal. It's Hard To Know Who Shares Our Secrets.

There Are No Amateurs In The World Of Children.

Pain Is Just Another Form Of Information.

America Is The World's Living Myth. There's No Sense Of Wrong When You Kill An American Or Blame America For Some Local Disaster. This Is Our Function, To Be Character Types, To Embody Recurring Themes That People Can Use To Comfort Themselves, Justify Themselves And So On. We're Here To Accommodate. Whatever People Need, We Provide. A Myth Is A Useful Thing.

To Plot Is To Live. […] We Start Out Lives In Chaos, In Babble. As We Surge Up Into The World, We Try To Devise A Shape, A Plan. There Is Dignity In This. Your Whole Life Is A Plot, A Scheme, A Diagram. It Is A Failed Scheme But That's Not The Point. To Plot Is To Affirm Life, To Seek Shape And Control. Even After Death, Most Particularly After Death, The Search Continues. Burial Rites Are An Attempt To Complete The Scheme, In Ritual. Picture A State Funeral, Jack. It Is All Precision, Detail, Order, Design. The Nation Holds Its Breath. - (wn 292)