Sometimes, When You're Close To Someone, You

There's A Spanish Proverb," He Said, "that's Always Fascinated Me. "take What You Want And Pay For It, Says God.'" "i Don't Believe In God," Daniel Said, "but That Principle Seems, To Me, To Have A Divinity Of Its Own; A Kind Of Blazing Purity. What Could Be Simpler, Or More Crucial? You Can Have Anything You Want, As Long As You Accept That There Is A Price And That You Will Have To Pay It.

We Think Of Mortality So Little These Days... I Thought Of The Stern Victorian Determination To Keep Death In Mind, The Uncompromising Tombstones. Remember, Pilgrim, As You Pass By, As You Are Now So Once Was I: As I Am So Will You Be.

Now That's A Concept That's Always Fascinated Me: The Real World. Only A Very Specific Subset Of People Use The Term, Have You Noticed? To Me, It Seems Self-evident That Everyone Lives In The Real World - We All Breathe Real Oxygen, Eat Real Food, The Earth Under Our Feet Feels Equally Solid To All Of Us. But Clearly These People Have A Far More Tightly Circumscribed Definition Of Reality, One That I Find Deeply Mysterious, And An Almost Pathologically Intense Need To Bring Others Into Line With That Definition.

My Father Told Me Once That The Most Important Thing Every Man Should Know Is What He Would Die For.

When You're Too Close To People, When You Spend Too Much Time With Them And Love Them Too Dearly, Sometimes You Can't See Them