But what I really

But what I really long to know you do not tell either: what you feel, although I’ve given you hints by the score of my regard. You like me. You wouldn’t waste time or paper on a being you didn’t like. But I think I’ve loved you since we met at your mother’s funeral. I … Read more

She would have colored

She would have colored gracefully with embarrassment had she not possessed the complexion of one of those “heathen Italians,” as her mother said, who never colored, gracefully or otherwise. (Convincing her mother that Christianity had, to all intents and purposes, originated with the Italians, thus making them the exact opposite of heathen, was a waste … Read more

If i wouldn’t have

If i wouldn’t have done comedy, I would have been a teacher. I was really good when I took an exploratory teaching class in high school, at getting kids’ attention, and delivering lesson plans. Though my principal even told me that this was what I was meant to do. And that being a big-mouth comedian … Read more

There is no waste

There is no waste in functioning natural ecosystems. All organisms, dead or alive, are potential sources of food for other organisms. A caterpillar eats a leaf; a robin eats the caterpillar; a hawk eats the robin. When the plant, caterpillar, robin, and hawk die, they are in turn consumed by decomposers. G. Tyler Miller

I am obliged to

I am obliged to interpolate some remarks on a very difficult subject: proof and its importance in mathematics. All physicists, and a good many quite respectable mathematicians, are contemptuous about proof. I have heard Professor Eddington, for example, maintain that proof, as pure mathematicians understand it, is really quite uninteresting and unimportant, and that no … Read more