How do you explain to yourself the casual manner in which you threw your life away?

If we break promises to God, shouldn't we be allowed an occasional violation of our word to our friends and superiors?

The best thing about being a best-selling writer is being a best-selling writer. More seriously, today I can write full time and pay the bills.

If you put somebody on a crack pipe and give them a 9 mm Baretta, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what's going to happen next.

Then the sun broke above the crest of the hills and the entire countryside looked soaked in blood, the arroyos deep in shadow, the cones of dead volcanoes stark and biscuit-colored against the sky. I could smell pinion trees, wet sage, woodsmoke, cattle in the pastures, and creek water that had melted from snow. I could smell the way the country probably was when it was only a dream in the mind of God.

To misuse one's talent, to be cavalier about it, to set it aside because of fear or sloth is unpardonable.

How do you caution a fawn about a cigarette a motorist has just flipped from his car window into a patch of yellow grass, or tell a sparrow that winged creatures eventually plummet to earth?