In February, the overcast sky isn’t gloomy so much as neutral and vague. It’s a significant factor in the common experience of depression among the locals. The snow crunches under your boots and clings to your trousers, to the cuffs, and once you’re inside, the snow clings to you psyche, and eventually you have to go to the doctor. The past soaks into you in this weather because the present is missing almost entirely.

You are a real find and you keep me satisfied, up to a point. After all, I'm a malcontent and you can't change that.

Short story characters, mine anyway, are usually driven by impulse, not so much by their histories and the choices that they have to make.

The point is that although love may die, what is said on its behalf cannot be consumed by the passage of time, and forgiveness is everything.

If you want to see the consequences of ideas, write a story. If you want to see the consequences of belief, write a story in which somebody is acting on the ideas or beliefs that she has.

What a midwesterner he was, a thoroughly unhip guy with his heart in the usual place, on the sleeve, in plain sight.

Savor the imminent weirdness of the day.