There were not many people who could say that their education had been paid for with cigarettes.

She was a Jew feeder without a question in the world on that man's first night in Molching. She was an arm reacher, deep into a mattress, to deliver a sketchbook to a teenage girl. (84.25)

I'm not one of these 'the characters write themselves; the story just fell out of me' kind of writers. Wish it was like that.

The injury of words. Yes, the brutality of words.

Grimly, she realized that clocks don't make a sound that even remotely resembles ticking, tocking. It was more the sound of a hammer, upside down, hacking methodically at the earth. It was the sound of a grave.

I read some books that were the right books for me. I read them and I didn't even notice turning the pages anymore. I thought, "That's what I want to do with my life."

Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness.