We knew each other better than anyone else and yet I left all of them in the abyss.

To which of the gulfs did he nod his head?

We all know the classic scene from cartoons: the cat reaches a precipice but goes on walking; it starts to fall only when it looks down and notices the abyss.

Somehow, Washington has lost any sense of what’s at stake — of the reality that we may well be falling into an economic abyss, and that if we do, it will be very hard to get out again.

I stared at the abyss every day and I wanted to run away from it.