In these dangerous times where it seems the world is ripping apart at the seams we can all learn how to survive from those who stare death squarely in the face every day and we should reach out to each other and bond as a community rather than hide from the terrors of life at the end of the millennium.

But for me it is when a student has died. I find the death of a young person the most difficult and painful of times. To explain it to other young people to see a bright future snuffed out is just awful. I am haunted by those deaths.

I have sometimes imagined my own death and brought myself to tears.

The drink? Yes I've had tough times in my life especially the last year regarding my ex-wife my kids I nearly broke my neck I was on death row with pneumonia.

Death has always had a prominent place in my mind. There are times when I think somebody might kill me.

I've always had bronchitis. I've been administered the Sacrament of Death three times for it.

I'm in awe of people out there who deal with Alzheimer's because they have to deal with death 10 times over year after year.

Tears are sometimes an inappropriate response to death. When a life has been lived completely honestly completely successfully or just completely the correct response to death's perfect punctuation mark is a smile.

Families survive one way or another. You have a tie a connection that exists long after death through many lifetimes.

If what you do is being threatened as a profession that could be scary. But that's the same reason why I walked out on stage many times after receiving death threats. I couldn't live without doing what I wanted to do. So at the same time I have to be willing to die for it.