I would never understand photography, the sneaky, murderous taxidermy of it.

Love is the answer, said the songs, and that's OK. It was OK, I supposed, as an answer. But no more than that. It was not a solution; it wasn't really even an answer, just a reply.

I've never been to a dinner party where everyone at the dinner table didn't say something funny.

I did think reviewers were supposed to be polite about story collections - collections are rather delicate creatures in the literary environment - but not everybody got this memo, I guess.

That is what is wrong with cold people. Not that they have ice in their souls - we all have a bit of that - but that they insist every word and deed mirror that ice. They never learn the beauty or value of gesture. The emotional necessity. For them, it is all honesty before kindness, truth before art. Love is art, not truth. It's like painting scenery.

Those are the love killers. They love you and then they kill you. They're from another planet. Supposedly.

The affectionate farce I make of him ignores the ways I feel his lack of love for me. But we are managing.