vs.

My life as an unpublishable writer

Essays personal and philosophical

“For the last hour of the school day, I sat in that warm, noxious stew. I tried to ignore the moist jeans, the worsening odor, the looks from other kids.”

“So what if you’re trying really hard to do the job right—you think the world gives a damn? Stop whining, you red-faced little twerp! This is what failure feels like. Get used to it.”

“When H&R Block e-files a return, it has no idea whether the return is as perfect as a gemstone or a godawful mess.”

“Put a child’s life and health on one side of the scale, and our yearning for flat-screen pleasures on the other–then decide, which matters more?”

“The elaborate edifice of pleasures and conveniences that we have become accustomed to rests on the backs of the exploited and abused. Their world is grim so ours can be bright.”

“Christian theology is incompatible with the facts of the world: a loving, all-powerful God simply would not permit the tragic losses and terrible suffering that happen every day on an inconceivable scale.”

“The idea of God watching over each human being with boundless love is a surviving relic of the earth-centered universe that was debunked and discarded long ago. Christianity is the fossilized remains of a dead cosmology.”