The stories did not seem to me to touch life. They were plainly intended to have a bracing moral effect, and perhaps had this result for the people at whom they were aimed. They left me with the impression of a well-delivered stereopticon lecture, with characters about as life-like as the shadows on the screen, and whisking on and off, at the mercy of the operator.

But drawing from my pants an old Hoover flag left over from my father's failed youth, I see I lack the least smudge of a penny to pay salvation's cover charge … with. So I begin circling the block drunkenly, in a holding pattern, …

On February 15, 2013, many on Earth were watching for news of the approach of an asteroid labeled 2012 DA14. Suddenly, those watchers – and millions of others around the globe – were startled by news of a superbolide, or super bright meteor, above the region of Chelyabinsk in Russia.

The reason why I did not publish this book till the end of the last sessions of parliament was, because I did not care to interfere with more momentous affairs.