Writing fiction has developed in me an abiding respect for the unknown in a human lifetime and a sense of where to look for the threads how to follow how to connect find in the thick of the tangle what clear line persists.

In the last analysis the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for 'finding himself.' If he persists in shifting his responsibility to somebody else he fails to find out the meaning of his own existence.

What does it mean to be Catholic and not a Catholic? I feel adrift homeless. My Catholic imagination allows me to see the soul as a lit breath seeking the divine. It persists.

Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.

For centuries the death penalty often accompanied by barbarous refinements has been trying to hold crime in check yet crime persists. Why? Because the instincts that are warring in man are not as the law claims constant forces in a state of equilibrium.

All the best performers bring to their role something more something different than what the author put on paper. That's what makes theatre live. That's why it persists.