Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.

The church and the whorehouse arrived in the Far West simultaneously. And each would have been horrified to think it was a different facet of the same thing. But surely they were both intended to accomplish the same thing: the singing, the devotion, the poetry of the churches took a man out of his bleakness for a time, and so did the brothels.

George's voice became deeper. He repeated his words rhythmically as though he had said them many times before. 'Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don't belong no place. They come to a ranch an' work up a stake, and the first thing you know they're poundin' their tail on some other ranch. They ain't got nothing to look ahead to.

Poetry is the mathematics of writing and closely kin to music.

My own journey started long before I left, and was over before I returned.

I do want to make it very convincing. And the best way to do that is to put most of it in dialogue.

We gather our arms full of guilt as though it were precious stuff. It must be that we want it that way.