Life is a series of sudden disappearances, leave-takings without the proper goodbyes.

I don't think I'm cut out for a job where you have to look professionally tidy. I prefer working in my pajamas and taking showers after lunch.

Becka was almost good looking enough to be on a reality dating show, but not funny looking or sad enough to be on one of the makeover shows.

Well, I don't ever leave out details, in that I don't come up with information or description which I don't then use. I only ever come up with what seems to me absolutely essential to make the story work. I'm not usually an overwriter. As I revise, it's usually a matter of adding in as much vivid details as seem necessary to make the story come clear without slowing down the momentum of the story.

I think that we want to be led slightly astray when we're being told a story. Just a little wrong footed.

Nobody tells her to shut up. It would be pointless. Amy has a large heart and an even larger mouth. When it rains, Amy rescues worms off the sidewalk. When you get tired of having a secret, you tell Amy. Understand: Amy isn't that much stupider than anyone else in the story. It's just that she thinks out loud.

You say that if we hadn't just gotten married, you would want to marry Miss Arkansas. Even if she can't spell. She can sit on her hair. A lover could climb that hair like a gym rope. It's fairy-tale hair, Rapunzel hair. We saw her practicing for the pageant in the hotel ballroom with two wild pigs, her hair braided into two lassoes.