People will do anything, anything, for a really nice laugh.

A DARK MATTER is a page-turning thriller of every sort: psychological, sociological, epistemological . Plus, it's really scary.

The thing to remember about love affairs," says Simone, "is that they are all like having raccoons in your chimney." ... We have raccoons sometimes in our chimney," explains Simone. And once we tried to smoke them out. We lit a fire, knowing they were there, but we hoped the smoke would cause them to scurry out the top and never come back. Instead, they caught on fire and came crashing down into our living room, all charred and in flames and running madly around until they dropped dead." Simone swallows some wine. "Love affairs are like that," she says. "They are all like that.

Editing is just ongoing. I don't count drafts, or know what would fully constitute a draft. But I try to fix as I go. And there's always more to fix.

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

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

When she packed up to leave, she knew that she was saying goodbye to something important, which was not that bad, in a way, because it meant that at least you had said hello to it to begin with.