Sometimes I think if we didn’t have these problems the whole world would stop spinning on her axis, we’d all stop spinning on our axises, axes, or whatever you want to call them, and then we’d have to settle into the nasty business of finding a way to be happy.

In retrospect, I came to Nagasaki for the regenerative properties. The second atomic bomb blast so many years ago, which had swept up most of the city in a plutonium cloud, had made the city radioactively peace-loving. Reversing the usual cycle that turns victim into perpetrator, the people who stepped from the rubble filled their hearts with a fervent devotion to peace in all its forms.In my mind's eye I see them: wounded and dying, their lungs filled with ash and smoke. The ash sits there for some time, and when they exhale, miraculously, something akin to love comes out.

Let the bullshitters have their bullshit. You and me, we have lives to live. And once you open your mouth to respond to their bullshit--well, that's when you're knee-deep in it.