I've always known when I start a story what the last line is. It's always been the case, since the first story I ever wrote. I don't know how it's going to get there, but I seem to need the destination. I need to know where I end up. It never changes, ever.

For peace of mind, I will lie about any thing at any time.

I assemble stories-me and a hundred million other people-at the sentence level. Not by coming up with a sweeping story line.

nothing is ever quite as bad as it could be.

I meet a person, and in my mind I'm saying three minutes; I give you three minutes to show me the spark.

It was like that class at school where the teacher talks about Realization, about how you could realize something big in a commonplace thing. The example he gave--and the liar said it really happened--was that once while drinking orange juice, he'd realized he would be dead someday. He wondered if we, his students, had had similar 'realizations.' Is he kidding? I thought. Once I cashed a paycheck and I realized it wasn't enough. Once I had food poisoning, and realized I was trapped inside my body.

And I see that not touching for so long was a drive to the beach with the windows rolled up so the waves feel that much colder.