I'd rather be a born-once hog than a born-again Christian any day.

I'd rather be a born-once hog than a born-again Christian any day.

If I can be writing, I can take a certain amount of control when so much around me is upsetting.

Writing is like meditation or going into an ESP trance, or prayer. Like dreaming. You are tapping into your unconscious. To be fully conscious and alert, with life banging and popping and cuckooing all around, you are not going to find your way to your subconscious, which is a place of complete submission.

I feel at times that I'm making up these little people and I've lost my mind.

I feel like a lot of time my writing is like having about twenty boxes of Christmas decorations. But no tree. You're going, Where do I put this? Then they go, Okay, you can have a tree, but we'll blindfold you and you gotta cut it down with a spoon.

That’s the way we see life: your community is your survival. And if you live in a small community like this, even the people you hate you have as friends.