“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 ...”

“Anna thought about the men outside on the gallery. She was glad they were there; finding them smoking and talking quietly had been comforting, it was what men did in the evenings when the work was ...”

“Her arms groped forward to guide her when her tears blocked her vision in darkness. Then she couldn't run any more. She sank to her knees and began to cry in her terror. She wanted Gary.She suddenl...”

“Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,And, while the bubbling and loud hissing urnThrows up a steamy column and the cupsThat cheer but not inebr...”

“Fantasy, an unflagging optimism is necessary for a writer at all stages of this rough game. A kind of madness is therefore necessary, when there is every logical reason for a state of depression an...”

“We both grew so used to each other, so comfortable with the naturalness and ease of our friendship, that we became sloppy about keeping our relationship a secret. It was not that we were physically...”

“I don't want comfortable. My heart is not a recliner.”

“To animals they were just the weather, just part of everything. But humans arose and gave them names, just as people filled the starry sky with heroes and monsters, because this turned them into st...”

“Myths do not happen all at once. They do not spring forth whole into the world. They form slowly, rolled between the hands of time until their edges smooth, until the saying of the story gives enou...”

“Myths tell us what those like us have done, can do, should do. Without myths to lead the way, we hesitate to leap forward. Listen to the wrong myths, and we might even go back a few steps.”