Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.

I wait. I compose myself. My self is a thing I must now compose, as one composes a speech. What I must present is a made thing, not something born.

My own view of myself was that I was small and innocuous, a marshmallow compared to the others. I was a poor shot with a 22, for instance, and not very good with an ax. It took me a long time to figure out that the youngest in a family of dragons is still a dragon from the point of view of those who find dragons alarming.

Where do the words go when we have said them?

Before the Civil War, Canada was at the top of the underground railroad. If you made it into Canada, you were safe unless someone came and hauled you back. That was also true during the Vietnam War for draft resisters.

There's nothing like a shovel full of dirt to encourage literacy.

But the adjectives change,” said Jimmy. “Nothing’s worse than last year’s adjectives.