I like to tell students, 'I didn't burst on to the literary scene.' I'm never good at things at the beginning. I was terrible at the start. I need to work and work.

I watch the beauty for as long as I can, then turn and face the rest of it.

Sometimes people are beautiful. Not in looks. Not in what they say. Just in what they are.

Everything was good. But it was awful, too.

***A KEY WORD*** Imagined

She took a step and didn't want to take any more, but she did.

Beautiful women are the torment of my existence.