One of them hissed-not the hiss of a cat, a long, steady tone-more like the hiss of air escaping the rubber raft that is all that lies between you and a dark sea full of sharks, the hiss of your life leaking out at the seams.

That's the difference between irony and sarcasm. Irony can be spontaneous, while sarcasm requires volition. You have to create sarcasm.

When I teach seminars, I tell people, Your stuff has to look like something thats out there, because otherwise nobody will take a chance on you.

Christmas crept into Pine Cove like a creeping Christmas thing: dragging garland, ribbon, and sleigh bells, oozing eggnog, reeking of pine, and threatening festive doom like a cold sore under the mistletoe.

Shoes off in the whale! And don't try and make a break for the anus.

She doesn't understand that a writer is a special creature--that I'm different from everyone else. I'm not saying I'm superior to other people, just more sensitive, I guess.

Tommy moved on. "Lash, your people have been oppressed for hundreds of years. It's time to strike back. Look, you don't have your MBA yet - they haven't completely juiced you of your usefulness yet. Would Martin Luther King back down from this challenge? Malcolm X? James Brown? Don't you have a dream? Don't you feel good, like you knew that you would, now?