I giggled out loud at his stupidity. If anyone knew how to make a bed, it was a faggot.

I spend so much time like living in the past or the future. I mean, I think most people do, really. And the moments when you're really present in your life can be pretty rare, really.

In other parts of the country people tried to stay together for the sake of the children. In New York they tried to work things out for the sake of the apartment.

After the trial, I watched as another female pathologist collected maggots from a spinal column found in the desert. There was a decomposed head, too, and before leaving work she planned to simmer it and study the exposed cranium for contusions. I was asked to pass this information along to the chief medical examiner, and, looking back, I perhaps should have chosen my words more carefully. 'Fire up the kettle,' I told him. 'Ol'-fashioned skull boil at five p.m.

When someone tell me they illegally downloaded one of my audiobooks I think, Thanks a lot, Pal. When someone tells me they checked my book out of the library, I'm delighted. I've always been a big library user, and feel a kinship with others who do the same thing.

I like nonfiction books about people with wretched lives.

I had to wrestle daily with both my inadequacy and my uncontrollable jealousy. I didn't want to kill her, but hoped someone else might do the job for me.