There Are Two Stories For

I Believe He Died This Way On Purpose. I Believe He Wanted No Chilling Moments, No One To Witness His Last Breath And Be Haunted By It, The Way He Had Been Haunted By His Mother's Death-notice Telegram Or By His Father's Corpse In The City Morgue.

I Find Interesting Characters Or Lessons That Resonate With People And Sometimes I Write About Them In The Sports Pages, Sometimes I Write Them In A Column, Sometimes In A Novel, Sometimes A Play Or Sometimes In Nonfiction. But At The Core I Always Say To Myself, 'is There A Story Here? Is This Something People Want To Read?'

Don't Let Our Outside Labels Or How Fervent We Look Or Zealous We Are Or How Righteous We Seem; That's Not How You Measure Yourself Against Other People. Everyone Is A Child Of God; If We Really Believed That, We'd Treat Each Other Better.

I Asked Myself, 'am I Going To Withdraw From The World, Like Most People Do, Or Am I Going To Live?' I Decided I Am Going To Live - Or At Least Try To Live - The Way I Want, With Dignity, With Courage, With Humor, With Composure.

But My Father, A Thief In Many Ways, Had Robbed Me Of My Concentration.