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

You get a lot of narrative energy from people who make really big mistakes, who act against their best interests, who do things that turn out to have serious consequences. It's very hard make a story out of people doing the right thing over and over again.

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.

Remember, when you don’t know what to do, it never hurts to play Scrabble. It’s like reading the I Ching or tea leaves.

Sometimes it is safer to read maps with your feet.

Topiary has always seemed like a good occupation, comparable in some ways to writing short fiction.

Look. All books are weird when you think about it.... It goes without saying that real life is also weird.