Humorist Art Buchwald is dying. Against medical advice, he has refused dialysis. Editor & Publisher paid him a visit at a hospice.

Readers pay tribute to Buchwald in letters to the editors.

Most of the time, Buchwald’s columns were funny. But not all the time. Right after the terror attacks of 9/11, he wrote this:

When President Kennedy was killed, my friend Mary McGrory said to Pat Moynihan, “We’ll never laugh again.”

And Moynihan, who later became a U.S. senator, replied, “Mary, we’ll laugh again, but we’ll never be young again.”

That is the way I felt last Tuesday.

…

I watch the same pictures over and over again. The buildings on fire, and tumbling down, the soot on the faces of the rescued and the rescuers and I know I’m entering a new world and things will never be the same.

How much freedom will I have to give up for safety? Nobody knows.

The only thing I can be sure of — “We’ll laugh again, but we’ll never be young again.”