I thought: this is how life is, ridiculous beyond comprehension.

When you're given a brilliant child you polish her and let her shine. Pigs in Heaven

If my setting is new to a reader, or the concerns of the novel are new, I hope they will learn something about the world. I would like to say that they can trust that what they do learn in the novel will be accurate, because I pay a lot of attention to facts. I do a lot of research to make sure that I'm not giving them, you know, blue moons of Jupiter. It's not science fiction.

Once you start cooking, one thing leads to another. A new recipe is as exciting as a blind date. A new ingredient, heaven help me, is an intoxicating affair.

There was a roaring in my ears and I lost track of what they were saying. I believe it was the physical manifestation of unbearable grief.

To be hopeful, to embrace one possibility after another that is surely the basic instinct - crying out: High tide! Time to move out into the glorious debris. Time to take this life for what it is!

So one time when I was working in this motel one of the toilets leaked and I had to replace the flapper ball. Here's what it said on the package; I kept it till I knew it by heart: 'Please Note. Parts are included for all installations, but no installation requires all of the parts.' That's kind of my philosophy about men. I don't think there's an installation out there that could use all my parts.