It was too nerve-wracking, a shocking spectacle, like seeing an old, calm friend go insane.

I wrote The Grapes of Wrath in one hundred days, but many years of preparation preceded it.

My wants are simple. I have no desire to latch onto a monster symbol of fate and power and prove my manhood in titanic piscine war. But sometimes I do like a couple of cooperative fish of frying size.

Like most passionate nations, Texas has its own history based on, but not limited by, facts.

One day we'll sit and you'll lay it out on the table, neat like a solitaire deck, but now - why, you can't find all the cards.

I remember as a child reading or hearing the words 'The Great Divide' and being stunned by the glorious sound, a proper sound for the granite backbone of a continent. I saw in my mind escarpments rising into the clouds, a kind of natural Great Wall of China.

Trouble with mice is you always kill 'em.