It's unrealistic to live your life within such strict parameters.

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.

Comfort has its place, but it seems rude to visit another country dressed as if you’ve come to mow its lawns.

She's afraid to tell me anything important, knowing I'll only turn around and write about it. In my mind, I'm like a friendly junkman, building things from the little pieces of scrap I find here and there, but my family's started to see things differently. Their personal lives are the so-called pieces of scrap I so casually pick up, and they're sick of it. More and more often their stories begin with the line "You have to swear you'll never repeat this." I always promise, but it's generally understood that my word means nothing.

I like nonfiction books about people with wretched lives.

Say what you will about the south, but in North Carolina a hot dog is free to swing anyway it wishes.

If I were president, I would turn the tables and allow the fetus to abort its mother.