The human organism has only so much energy at its disposal. If you divert a great deal of it into any one channel, you can expect the others to collapse or atrophy. If you squander your vital energies on your emotional life, as you have been doing, plan to be physically and mentally bankrupt, as it were.

Dying was apparently a weaning process; all the attachments to familiar people and objects have to be undone.

The only obvious advantage to being an adult is that you can eat your dessert without haying sampled the vegetables.

I wrote for twelve years and collected 250 rejection slips before getting any fiction published, so I guess outside reinforcement isn't all that important to me.

successful parenting was like log rolling, and she'd often landed in the drink.

A snake will always be a snake, even if you put a chain around its neck and try to make it walk upright.

The French would eat anything that couldn't outrun them.