Against the sustained tick of a watch, fiction takes the measure of a life, a season, a look exchanged, the turning point, desire as brief as a dream, the grief and terror that after childhood we cease to express.

A writer's life stands in relation to his work as a house does to a garden, related but distinct.

She and Marie were Montreal girls, not trained to accompany heroes, or to hold out for dreams, but just to be patient.

[My father] had spent his own short time like a priest in charge of a relic, forever expecting the blessed blood to liquefy.

There is something I keep wanting to say about reading short stories. I am doing it now, because I many never have another occasion. Stories are not chapters of novels. They should not be read one after another, as if they were meant to follow along. Read one. Shut the book. Read something else. Come back later. Stories can wait.

Against the sustained tick of a watch, fiction takes the measure of a life, a season, a look exchanged, the turning point, desire as brief as a dream, the grief and terror that after childhood we cease to express.

All lives are interesting; no one life is more interesting than another. Its fascination depends on how much is revealed, and in what manner.