I am the only one who can tell the story of my life and say what it means.

I did not begin with craft, I began with strong feelings and worked toward craft.

Fiction is a piece of truth that turns lies to meaning.

It ain't that you get religion. Religion gets you and then milks you dry. Won't let you drink a little whiskey. Won't let you make no fat-assed girls grin and giggle. Won't let you do a damn thing except work for what you'll get in the hearafter. I live in the here and now.

Beauty, my first girlfriend said to me, is that inner quality often associated with great amounts of leisure time.

When I was growing up, I always read horror books, while my sister read romance novels.

my life has been saved over and over again by picking up a book in which someone captured the whole experience of being despised and not dying.