Sander Abend played an important role in psychoanalysis for over forty years: as editor of Psychoanalytic Quarterly, in his many contributions to the psychoanalytic literature, and through his involvement with psychoanalytic organizations at all levels. A few years before his recent death, he published an excellent selection of his papers. I wrote this review a few months before he died, and the book serves as an eloquent example of the quality of Abend's work. This collection serves as a testament to his ability to consider and incorporate new ideas, while also holding to basic Freudian principles. What I noticed immediately in reading these papers was the clarity of Abend's thinking and writing. This lucidity was a welcome relief from what seems an increasing tendency in the literature to view murky, abstract thinking as a sign of intellectual brilliance.