Probably Human Cruelty Is Fixed And Eternal.

My 12-year-old Daughter Said To Me, "enough With The Subtitles, Daddy, For Crying Out Loud." Because They Always Seem To Cloud The Issue Rather Than Clarify It.

The Universe Is A Million Billion Light-years Wide, And Every Inch Of It Would Kill You If You Went There. This Is The Position Of The Universe With Regards To Human Life.

Much Modern Prose Is Praised For Its Terseness, Its Scrupulous Avoidance Of Curlicue, Etcetera. But I Don't Feel The Deeper Rhythm There. I Don't Think These Writers Are Being Terse Out Of Choice. I Think They Are Being Terse Because It's The Only Way They Can Write.

Bullets Cannot Be Recalled. They Cannot Be Uninvented. But They Can Be Taken Out Of The Gun.

September 11 Was A Day Of De-enlightenment. Politics Stood Revealed As A Veritable Walpurgis Night Of The Irrational. And Such Old, Old Stuff. The Conflicts We Now Face Or Fear Involve Opposed Geographical Arenas, But Also Opposed Centuries Or Even Millennia. It Is A Landscape Of Ferocious Anachronisms: Nuclear Jihad In The Indian Subcontinent; The Medieval Agonism Of Islam; The Bronze Age Blunderings Of The Middle East.