And now, talking of praying, I realise sadly that there will be little point in praying for you. You are passing now to a region where you will be beyond the reach of the power of prayer.
What is odd is not that so many of the iconic news photos of the past, including some of the best-remembered pictures from the Second World War, appear to have been staged. It is that we are surprised to learn they were staged and always disappointed.
Perhaps if I'd had God in my life growing up I would have been able to understand the total and complete unfairness of the universe rewarding mean girls
It's so clear to me now: the memorizing of a fake prayer, the symbolization of objects, the struggle to relate to the invisible - I needed a religion. I was lost.
Teddy bears are best because they understand it's nice to be alone.
It should be noted that my mother has a long history of being disturbingly unperturbed by what normal people deem perturbing. Certain things simply don't strike her as worthy of a sit-down.
love is not boastful. But hate? Apparently hate has a big mouth.
With time, many staged photographs turn back into historical evidence, albeit of an impure kind - like most historical evidence.
It seemed that having girlfriends was a sign of innocence and a boundless capacity to care about other women. The hearts in that photograph and multiple strings attached to multiple other hearts. Everything was less about cliché and more about camaraderie. We weren't out for ourselves, we were out for each other. When had I forgotten that? When had I cut the pink wire?
I have never pictured my own wedding. I do want to get married. It's a nice idea. Though I think husbands are like tattoos - you should wait until you come across something you want on your body for the rest of your life.
I thought of the past and how one should have respect for it, like the elderly.
So natural and universal is a child's curiosity about sex and so long are we conscious of it before we do it, that our original impressions of it leave an indelible mark.
There is a point in most abusive relationships when it occurs to the beaten party that they are guilty of putting their face in the way of someone else's fist.
Even a person like this makes mistakes, can't always hold on to everything they'd like to,can't always force the world to spin in the direction of their choosing. You'll hug him longer than necessary and tell him to keep in touch. And you'll know, finally, that it had nothing to do with you.
In fact, there are many uses of the innumerable opportunities a modern life supplies for regarding - at a distance, through the medium of photography - other people's pain.
The memory of war, however, like all memory, is mostly local.
Perhaps the only people with the right to look at images of suffering of this extreme order are those who could do something to alleviate it - say, the surgeons at the military hospital where the photograph was taken - or those who could learn from it. The rest of us are voyeurs, whether or not we mean to be.
The real proof that I have tried to love and that people have tried to love me back was never going to fit in a kitchen drawer.
Why do people always want to put their hands on vulnerability? I sped up.
A place is not really a place without a bookstore.
