Why should I believe any of this?' It happens that fast. I say, because I think I like you. Marla says, 'Not love?' This is a cheesy enough moment, I say. Don't push it.

The joke is, we all have the same punchline.

Love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, I'll be anybody you want me to be. Use me. Change me. I can be thin with big breasts and big hair. Take me apart. Make me into anything, but just love me.

There's no way you can get the past right. You can pretend. You can delude yourself, but you can't re-create what's over.

As a child of the 1970s, I couldn't hold a narrative in my head; I was lucky if I could hold a joke in my head, because every time you turn on television or radio, it wipes the slate clean - at least in my case. After I gave up television, I found I could carry longer and longer stories or ideas in my head and put them together until I was carrying an entire short story. That's pretty much when I started writing.

No, none of us seem so very real. We're only supporting characters in the lives of each other. Any real truth, any precious fact will always be lost in a mountain of shattered make-believe.

The government says Rant's alive because they need a villain. The kids say he's alive because they need a hero.