I have written letters that are failures, but I have written few, I think, that are lies. Trying to reach a person means asking the same question over and over again: Is this the truth, or not? I begin this letter to you, then, in the western tradition. If I understand it, the western tradition is: Put your cards on the table.

My job ... I do nothing, it pays nothing, but - you guessed it - it's better than nothing.

As soon as I knew that I would be all right, I was sure that I was dead and didn't know it. I moved through the days like a severed head that finishes a sentence. I waited for the moment that would snap me out of my seeming life.

An idea might spark an essay, but never a story.

I think of the chimp, the one with the talking hands.

Just because you have stopped sinking doesn't mean you're not still underwater.

When the beer is gone, so are they -- flexing their cars on up the boulevard.