11.   A friend describes the disease as me being on a raft alone while the people who love me keep trying to pull me toward shore.

12.   A high-school friend of Kosinski described three stages in the production of a Kosinski story.

13.   Allen Salmasi, chief executive of NextWave Telecom, is described by friends as a visionary and by enemies as a speculator.

14.   But the friend also described her as resilient and physically fit, still devoted to morning runs of several miles.

15.   Described by friends as an earnest, quiet, hard-working family man, Pearson does not consider himself a terrorist.

16.   Even his friends describe Leichter as a workaholic, and while he is leaving the Legislature, he has no intention of fading from view.

17.   Even so, friends cannot describe Ms. Duff without returning to her beauty.

18.   Friends describe her, accurately, as straightforward, ambitious and vulnerable.

19.   Friends describe Hewitt as charming, erratic, tempestuous, prickly, enthusiastic and happily egotistical.

20.   Friends describe Vonnegut as an unpretentious, decent and generous son of Indianapolis, an author who looks out for younger writers.