We May Never Know Why Joe Ellis

This Packrat Has Learned That What The Next Generation Will Value Most Is Not What We Owned, But The Evidence Of Who We Were And The Tales Of How We Loved. In The End, It's The Family Stories That Are Worth The Storage.

Who's Counting? It Was, Of Course, The Minority Who Were Counting. It Always Is. Most Of The Women I Know Today Would Dearly Like To Use Their Fingers And Toes For Some Activity More Enthralling Than Counting. They Have Been Counting For So Long. But The Peculiar Problem Of The New Math Is That Every Time We Stop Adding, Somebody Starts Subtracting. At The Very Least (the Advanced Students Will Understand This) The Rate Of Increase Slows. ... The Minority Members Of Any Group Or Profession Have Two Answers: They Can Keep Score Or They Can Lose.

It Is Not That Fathers Are Better Or Worse, Not That They Are More Loved Or Criticized, But Rather That They Are Viewed With Far Less Intensity. There Is No Philip Roth Or Woody Allen Or Nancy Friday Who Writes About Fathers With A Runaway Excess Of Humor, Horror ... Feeling. Most Of Us Let Our Fathers Off The Hook.

I Regard This Novel As A Work Without Redeeming Social Value, Unless It Can Be Recycled As A Cardboard Box.

Civility, It Is Said, Means Obeying The Unenforceable.