Animals are stylized characters in a kind of old saga - stylized because even the most acute of them have little leeway as they play out their parts.

A writer's work is to witness things.

If a person sings quietly to himself on the street people smile with approval; but if he talks it's not alright; they think he's crazy. The singer is presumed to be happy and the talker unhappy.

Sophistication" is another word for that inventive mix of tolerance, resilience, and resourcefulness city people develop.

The question of whether it's God's green earth is not at center stage, except in the sense that if so, one is reminded with some regularity that He may be dying.

Animals used to provide a lowlife way to kill and get away with it, as they do still, but, more intriguingly, for some people they are an aperture through which wounds drain. The scapegoat of olden times, driven off for the bystanders sins, has become a tender thing, a running injury. There, running away is me: hurt it and you are hurting me.

There were periods during my childhood when I stammered so badly I couldn't talk at all.