It's Better To Be Kind Than To

A Writer Paradoxically Seeks The Truth And Tells Lies Every Step Of The Way.

You Can Get The Monkey Off Your Back, But The Circus Never Leaves Town

Two Things Put Me In The Spirit To Give. One Is That I Have Come To Think Of Everyone With Whom I Come Into Contast As A Patient In The Emergency Room. I See A Lot Of Gaping Wounds And Dazed Expressions. Or, As Marianne Moore Put It, "the World's An Orphan's Home." And This Feels More True Than Almost Anything Else I Know. But So Many Of Us Can Be Soothed By Writing: Think Of How Many Times You Have Opened A Book, Read One Line, And Said, "yes!" And I Want To Give People That Feeling, Too, Of Connection, Communication.

Charles Had Once Remarked That Holding Onto A Resentment Was Like Eating Rat Poison And Waiting For The Rat To Die.

The Grief And Tears Didn't Wash Me Away. They Gave Me My Life Back! They Cleansed Me, Baptized Me, Hydrated The Earth At My Feet.