A young writer is easily tempted by the allusive and ethereal and ironic and reflective, but the declarative is at the bottom of most good writing.

Face it: a nation that maintains a 72% approval rating on George W. Bush is a nation with a very loose grip on reality.

We thank you [the soldiers recently returned from the middle east] for your service.

I write for a radio show that, no matter what, will go on the air Saturday at five o'clock central time. You learn to write toward that deadline, to let the adrenaline pick you up on Friday morning and carry you through, to cook up a monologue about Lake Wobegon and get to the theater on time.

I love rhymes; I love to write a poem about New York and rhyme 'oysters' with 'The Cloisters.' And 'The lady from Knoxville who bought her brassieres by the boxful.' I just feel a sort of small triumph.

A cruise ship is a floating town of lazy people.

In romance, as in life, you only learn when you're losing.