I am too old to have ever been very worried about what "genre" any given book of mine might be. I read everything. I am easily amused.

Canada is a balloon-puncturing country. You are not really allowed to be an icon unless you also make an idiot of yourself.

People dressed in a certain kind of clothing are never wrong. Also they never fart.

I feel despised there, for having so little money; also for once having had so much. I never actually had it, of course. Father had it, and then Richard. But money was imputed to me, the same way crimes are imputed to those who've simply been present at them.

Don't let the bastards grind you down. I repeat this to myself but it conveys nothing. You might as well say, Don't let there be air; or Don't be. I suppose you could say that.

The beginning of Canadian cultural nationalism was not 'Am I really that oppressed?' but 'Am I really that boring?'

This is the solstice, the still point of the sun, its cusp and midnight, the year's threshold and unlocking, where the past lets go of and becomes the future; the place of caught breath.