... life itself is brief, and that is what charges the day with such ridiculous beauty.

A boy wrote me once to say that he loved it when the news from Lake Wobegon came on the radio because it meant that his parents stopped arguing. That was an eye-opener for me. You work hard to polish your act and then you find out that it does people good in ways you couldn't predict.

I've wanted to be a writer since I was a boy, though it seemed an unlikely outcome since I showed no real talent. But I persevered and eventually found my own row to hoe. Ignorance of other writers' work keeps me from discouragement and I am less well-read than the average bus driver.

Being an English major prepares you for impersonating authority.

I was afraid you had deceased,' he said. 'Or gotten engrossed in a long book.

In California virtually everyone has had their teeth whitened. If they all smiled at once, they would give us a headache.

I don't associate work with feelings of satisfaction. Rather, guilt, frustration, and resentment of people who write better than I do.