Some Things It Don't Pay To Be

Must You Write Complete Sentences Each Time, Every Time? Perish The Thought. If Your Work Consists Only Of Fragments And Floating Clauses, The Grammar Police Aren't Going To Come And Take You Away. Even William Strunk, That Mussolini Of Rhetoric, Recognized The Delicious Pliability Of Language. "it Is An Old Observation," He Writes, "that The Best Writers Sometimes Disregard The Rules Of Rhetoric." Yet He Goes On To Add This Thought, Which I Urge You To Consider: "unless He Is Certain Of Doing Well, [the Writer] Will Probably Do Best To Follow The Rules."

A Lot Of Authority Figures Want To Be Good. I Sense That, And Yet At The Same Time I Sense That Authority, After A While, Always Leads To Some Kind Of Oppression. When The Minority Report Comes In, What You Do Is Run The Minority Out Of Town With A Flaming Cross. It's Just The Way Things Are.

The World, Although Well-lighted With Fluorescents And Incandescent Bulbs And Neon, Is Still Full Of Odd Dark Corners And Unsettling Nooks And Crannies.

Do You Believe In An Afterlife?" The Gunslinger Asked Him As Brown Dropped Three Ears Of Hot Corn Onto His Plate. Brown Nodded. "i Think This Is It.

A Man With A Good Wife Is The Luckiest Of God's Creatures.