Someday I will understand Auschwitz. This was a brave statement but innocently absurd. No one will ever understand Auschwitz. - William Styron

And so you see, dear reader, the death of my friend Sophie forced me to realize that the whole universe is one big concentration camp run by God — the biggest Nazi of them all! So slavery in Virginia wasn't all that bad. And it was really God's fault anyway. Pretty good tragic insight there. Think I'll crank some Bellamy Brothers and get loaded!

Depression is a disorder of mood, so mysteriously painful and elusive in the way it becomes known to the self — to the mediating intellect — as to verge close to being beyond description.

Camus's great essay "Reflections on the Guillotine" was alone almost enough - in its persuasive logic and eloquence - to make me an enemy of capital punishment.