“When reading a book, one hopes it doesnt turn into a painful process. Predictable is bad enough. Laborious is acceptable if the labor produces fruit. But with painfully bad writing, all one can do ...”

“Ive had a fountain pen surgically implanted in my left index finger to save trouble. My body is tattooed with line upon line of truth, fiction, and a not-always-pleasing mix of the two.”

“I suck the words word-dryto me, assimilated orderly at breakeye speedstill hard and hardersofter thenline-lined book-drytil not a dropof water-bloodfrom oak and elmand authored menis left to whispe...”

“When I pour a bowl of Uncle Sams cereal, I never know if I should stand when I eat, salute it first, or simply hum the Star Spangled Banner between mouthfuls.”

“Split your skulla hatchet works well enough. Take a more delicate instrumenta scalpel, perhapsand make a hand-sized slit; it doesnt matter where. Reach in (no glove needed), plunge down to the very...”

“This piece of earth I billet grows small. Bullets of time dart past, dropping shards of opportunity at my feet. And until the rift that surrounds my decaying body clamps shutswallows me up like so ...”

“Smiling at someone can have significant health consequences.”

“You're not free unless you come to the place where you have nothing to prove.”

“A man who has HEALTH has a thousand dreams, but a man without HEALTH has only one.”

“Your heartbeat is so different from his," I whisper it; he has to ask me to repeat myself. I explain, "My fatherhis heartbeat was so fast. I could feel it, racingit was like his heartbeat shook my ...”

“There are parts of a womans heart that are reserved for certain types of love. Experiencing the love of a father figure in an appropriate way is essential in paving the way for the love of a man to...”

“You may think that hiding your pain from sight is somehow going to make it disappear. I can tell you from experience that it isnt. It is just like the time as a kid when you really didnt want to ea...”

“My dear sister, you cant escape God, and you cant escape your skeletons in the closet. They will always be there until you take them out from behind those dusty old moth-eaten coats. Your exterior ...”