I Could Claim Any Number Of High-flown

I Think Of The Chimp, The One With The Talking Hands. In The Course Of The Experiment, That Chimp Had A Baby. Imagine How Her Trainers Must Have Thrilled When The Mother, Without Prompting, Began To Sign Her Newborn. Baby, Drink Milk. Baby, Play Ball. And When The Baby Died, The Mother Stood Over The Body, Her Wrinkled Hands Moving With Animal Grace, Forming Again And Again The Words: Baby, Come Hug, Baby Come Hug, Fluent Now In The Language Of Grief.

I Thought, My Love Is So Good, Why Isn't It Calling The Same Thing Back.

I Assemble Stories-me And A Hundred Million Other People-at The Sentence Level. Not By Coming Up With A Sweeping Story Line.

Nothing Is Ever Quite As Bad As It Could Be.

Obviously, In Journalism, You're Confined To What Happens. And The Tendency To Embellish, To Mythologize, It's In Us. It Makes Things More Interesting, A Closer Call. But Journalism Taught Me How To Write A Sentence That Would Make Someone Want To Read The Next One.