'Only by living on his terms could he die a satisfactory death, for even death had to have a meaning, as much as life, for birth and death were the beginning and end of the sentence and one had to fill that sentence with meaningful words. If one did not, then that death, that apex, would mean nothing and it had to mean everything. If it did not, if death meant nothing, if it was merely the cessation of breath, the stilling of the heart, then it was...