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Obituaries were among my favorite to write because they have elements no other news stories have - a story from start to finish with a proper conclusion.

Sometimes a famous subject may even outlive his own obituary writer.

I always wondered what hearing one's own obituary might sound like, and I sort of feel like I may have just heard part of it at least.

The obituaries shot up to the top of my list when I discovered Robert McG. Thomas, the 'Times' obit writer who redesigned its traditional form and added a measure of stylistic elegance.

I'm fairly certain when I die that the obituary will say, 'Author of 'Angels in America' dies.' Unless I'm completely forgotten, and then it won't say anything at all.

I feel like my career has been a series of glowing obituaries.

My parents were avid readers. Both had ambitions to write that had been abandoned early in life in order to get on with life.

I was an early reader, and my grandmother, who as a child had been forbidden to read by a father who believed books to be frivolous time-wasters, delighted in putting her favorite volumes into her grandchildren's hands.

I don't listen to the news. I don't read the newspaper unless it's eccentric information - and the obituaries, of course.

My wife Cecily Adams was dying of cancer, my daughter Madeline was struggling to overcome an autism diagnosis, and my father was dying, all at the same time. Writing the journal was a cathartic experience, and an extremely positive one.