They say such nice things about people at their funerals that it makes me sad that I'm going to miss mine by just a few days.

There was a price to be paid for being interested in fiction and in writing, pushing my family away. Books and authors became my family.

Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.

Eating a little was like vomiting a little, just as bad as a lot.

I was an English major at the University of Minnesota, and I was very shy, which many people misinterpreted as intelligence. On the basis of that wrong impression, I became the editor of the campus literary magazine.

It's important for survival that children have their own experiences, the kind they learn from. The kind their parents arrange for are not as useful. Good parents are the hardest to get rid of.

Adolescence hits boys harder than it does girls. Girls bleed a little and their breasts pop out, big deal, but adolescence lands on a guy with both feet. . . . Your body is engulfed by chemicals of rage and despair, you pound, you shriek, you batter your head against the trees. You come away wounded, feeling that life is unknowable, can never be understood, only endured and sometimes cheated.