I've Always Felt That My Subject Was

He'd Once Told Me That The Art Of Getting Ahead In New York Was Based On Learning How To Express Dissatisfaction In An Interesting Way. The Air Was Full Of Rage And Complaint. People Had No Tolerance For Your Particular Hardship Unless You Knew How To Entertain Them With It.

Do People Still Shoot At Presidents? I Thought There Were More Stimulating Targets.' (20)

I Am Ashamed Every Day, And More Ashamed The Next.

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)

Men With Secrets Tend To Be Drawn To Each Other, Not Because They Want To Share What They Know But Because They Need The Company Of The Like-minded, The Fellow Afflicted.