No one writes dialect better than Flannery O'Connor. No one should even try.

In New York I'd go to the movies three or four times a week. Here I've upped it to six or seven, mainly because I'm too lazy to do anything else. Fortunately, going to the movies seems to suddenly qualify as an intellectual accomplishment, on a par with reading a book or devoting time to serious thought. It's not that the movies have gotten any more strenuous, it's just that a lot of people are as lazy as I am, and together we've agreed to lower the bar.

Each one of us is left to choose our own quality of life and take pleasure where we find it with the understanding that, like Mom used to say, sooner or later something's gonna get you.

..she took pictures of germs, viruses, and people reacting to germs and viruses. On weekends, for extra money, she photographed weddings, which really wasn't that much of a stretch

I think I became a better writer after I started writing for the New Yorker. Well, I know I did. And part of it was having my New Yorker editor and part of it is that was when I started really going on tour and reading things in front of an audience 30 times and then going back in the room and rewriting it and reading it and rewriting it. So you really get the rhythm of the sentences down and you really get the flow down and you get rid of stuff that's not important.

What's strange is, the people who want to be in the position are never asked to be in the position. Like, if you don't want to do something, then people really want you to do it. And the more you say, "No, really, I'm sorry, it's really not for me," the more they want to convince you that it is, in fact, for you, and that you'd be absolutely perfect.

I hoped our lives would continue this way forever, but inevitably the past came knocking. Not the good kind that was collectible but the bad kind that had arthritis.