That's all my grandfather was guilty of, fear, faith in his words, but that was a high crime in her eyes. That's all Jack was guilty of that day, but I've lived with him a good while and I believe I understand him. Sometimes it might take an afternoon or evening of being here in this kitchen alone, thinking, but I can usually come to see his reasons through his ways. And half the job of finding peace is finding understanding. Don't you believe it to be so?

When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy.

I read about writers' lives with the fascination of one slowing down to get a good look at an automobile accident.

The fact that he had foamed at the mouth immediately upon dying, indicated that he had a great back jam of wishes and desires and truths that were never spoken...out bubbled all the words he had swallowed when he was alive.

I am a great believer in variations on the routine.

I could lay here and read all night. I am not able to fall asleep without reading. You have the time when your brain has nothing to do so it rambles. I fool my brain out of that by making it read until it shuts off. I just think it is best to do something right up until you fall asleep.

It took me a long time to learn that mistakes aren't good or bad, they're just mistakes, and you clean them up and go on.