It is very useful, when one is young, to learn the difference between "literally" and "figuratively." If something happens literally, it actually happens; if something happens figuratively, it feels like it is happening. If you are literally jumping for joy, for instance, it means you are leaping in the air because you are very happy. If you are figuratively jumping for joy, it means you are so happy that you could jump for joy, but are saving your energy for other matters.

Chestnuts in stuffing tastes like someone chewed up a tree branch and then French-kissed it into your mouth.

This toast feels raw. Is it safe to eat raw toast?

...you know that a good, long session of weeping can often make you feel better, even if your circumstances have not changed one bit.

They were almond cookies, although they could have been made of spinach and shoes for all I cared. I ate eleven of them, right in a row. It is rude to take the last cookie.

The Long Goodbye' is one book I like to read over and over again, and it was an enormous inspiration for 'All The Wrong Questions'.

I decided that it might be interesting to have terrible things happen to orphans over and over again.