“After all, you might postulate, Socrates himself/Was an infantryman, wearing leather with nameless stains,/On latrine duty, chewing olives, pursuing the elf/Called the soul as he chatted. Serene, undismayed/He lived and stayed sane .…

“The thing is, we know nothing about death/Except what it is not. It is not pain,/Nor struggle. Stripped of need even for breath/Our bodies settle. Minerals do not strain;/Achievement and failure do not…

“I did the thing one should not do, and anthropomorphized them, but only until I understood that it was a rare human being who displayed the brand of determination, which we call ‘heart,’…

“Do you know it when you meet him? Do you see/Through the glowing filter of happy lust,/On down the twisted tunnel of the years,/ The anguish and the shock of recognition—/The moment when, in…

“That is how I remember us, styling away, off to where Miss Nightingale, clad in her long, dark woolen skirts—(it was always after Labor Day that I saw her)—and twin sets, brandished her…

“Even in the disastrous political climate of today, with neighbor turning on neighbor, and families divided on issues more deeply, I suspect, than at any time since the Civil War, even when global…

“We have a clearly conflicted relationship with our less virtuous traits, and that confusion is evident in our portrayals of the Prince of Darkness. Much of it is Milton’s fault. The devil is…

“I love this part of the season. The distortion in today’s schedule, a natural result of the league expansion, means that, often, crucial playoff series are played in weather better suited to football,…

“Pop saw no reason that my youth and gender should prevent me from being interesting company for him. So, while other little girls learned decorum and how to curl their hair, I listened…

“The intensity inherent in such relationships is wearing, demanding in the extreme, and likely to produce missteps and strange, if not actually bad, judgment. But, it is glorious. Ashley Wilkes may be virtuous and…