Surrealism could not be made up. It was the very electricity of the real.

Humor comes from the surprise release of some buried tension.

If prose can cast a spell, we will listen to it no matter what it's saying. If a narrative uses language in a magical and enlivening way, we will listen to the story. But if the language doesn't cast a spell, we will listen to it only if it is telling us something that actually happened.

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.

Writers have no real area of expertise. They are merely generalists with a highly inflamed sense of punctuation.

When you find out who you are, you will no longer be innocent. That will be sad for others to see. All that knowledge will show on your face and change it. But sad only for others, not for yourself. You will feel you have a kind of wisdom, very mistaken, but a mistake of some power to you and so you will sadly treasure it and grow it.

You emptied the top rack of the dishwasher but not the bottom, so the clean dishes have gotten all mixed up with the dirty ones - and now you want to have sex?