As with marathon runs and lengths of toilet paper, there had to be standards to measure up to.

All of us are imperfect human beings living in an imperfect world.

We heard no other sounds. We met no other people. We saw only two bright red birds leap startled from the center of the meadow and dart into the woods.

Nobody's going to win all the time. On the highway of life you can't always be in the fast lane.

I realize now that the reality of things is not something you convey to people but something you make.

Mere humans who root through their refrigerators at three o'clock in the morning can only produce writing that matches what they do. And that includes me.

On any given day, something claims our attention. Anything at all, inconsequential things. A rosebud, a misplaced hat, that sweater we liked as a child, an old Gene Pitney record. A parade of trivia with no place to go. Things that bump around in our consciousness for two or three days then go back to wherever they came from... to darkness. We've got all these wells dug in our hearts. While above the wells, birds flit back and forth.