So what about me? Would I always have to find a high horse? The moral relish, the rising above, the being in the right, which can make me flaunt my losses.

One stroke of lightning does not have to lead anywhere, but to the next stroke of lightning.

The unhappiest moment I could never tell you. All our fights blend into each other and are in fact re-enactments of the same fight, in which we punish each other--I with words, Hugh with silence--for being each other. We never needed any more than that.

I would really hope this would make people see the short story as an important art, not just something you played around with until you got a novel.

Sometimes I get the start of a story from a memory, an anecdote, but that gets lost and is usually unrecognizable in the final story.

Row, row, row your boat. Gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.

They were all in their early thirties. An age at which it is sometimes hard to admit that what you are living is your life.