The central symbol for Canada-and this based on numerous instances of its occurrence in both English and French Canadian literature-is undoubtedly Survival, la Survivance.

Neither of us says the word love, not once. It would be tempting fate; it would be romance, bad luck.

Moira was like an elevator with open sides. She made us dizzy.

There's more than one way to skin a cat, my father used to say; it bothered me, I didn't see why they would want to skin a cat even one way.

We've learned to see the world in gasps.

If you DJ reality, that is, if you make a mash-up of actual reality, you're going to end up with something that inevitably people will say, "This is feminist." Because you cannot avoid that.

Once I was in Texas, where they had this thing called Ralph the Swimming Pig. You went into a theater and you were looking through a great big window at people dressed as mermaids swimming around with oxygen tanks. One of the mermaids had a bottle of milk, and a small Ralph the Swimming Pig dove in and swam over. Naturally, afterward, I said in the cafeteria, "What happens to the Ralphs when they get bigger? Would you serve Ralphs who have retired?" "Oh no! We would never do such a thing."