It's funny how you can go from hating a girl to maybe liking her, maybe liking her a lot, just because she shows a little interest in you.

When I write a novel, every word is mine. I welcome suggestions from my editor, but in the end, I make all the final decisions.

Toni hears voices," said Trapp. "But who is this Dr. Ellsworth to tell her she's a schizophrenic? Maybe she just perceives better than the rest of us. Maybe the voices she hears are just uncommunicated ideas, floating free.

When anything bad happens to me or someone I know, I always know who to blame. My no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather.

I hope I remember everything," said Toni. "You won't," said Trapp. "That's how you learn. But after you make the same mistake one, or two, or five times, you'll eventually get it. And then you'll make new mistakes.

There was something special about being in a strange place, all alone in a mass of people even if you had just screwed up your life, or perhaps especially if you had just screwed up your life.

I write in the mornings, two or three hours every day, and then at least four times a week I play in a duplicate game at a bridge club. I try to go to tournaments three, four, or five times a year.