When you know a friend is there you do not go to see him. Then he's gone and you blast your conscience to… — John Steinbeck

You might get the idea that they howled truth and beauty the way a seal bites out the National Anthem on a row of circus horns.

I have wondered why it is that some people are less affected and torn by the verities of life and death than others.

He told me how a man, a real man, had no right to let sorrow destroy him. He told me again and again how I must believe that time would take care of it. He said it so often that I knew he was losing.