1) "With some difficulty, however, he is able to navigate the obstacle course laid by her handwriting. Seeing an opportunity not only to relieve this nurse of her duties, but also of her financial drain upon certain dwindling assets, Mr. Corrigan decided 2 weeks ago to take up the task of watching his mother die himself."

2) "Another night's length of the boy's beside light is snipped, and it drifts lifelessly out the window, leaving him alone to long for the evening's facsimile of familial affection to last for the rest of his life, or at least for as long as he can cling to it before he falls asleep."

3) "Fortunately, for these children, a recent planting of trees, telephone poles, & houses on their bleak neighborhood landscape helps to make this game much more exciting. After all, who'd want to play hide & go seek in a swamp? A half century earlier, the only place to secret yourself around here might've been in a depression in the ground, or behind an indian on horseback. But, with the inevitable forward march of progress come new ways of hiding things, and new things to hide."

4) "Ha ha."