As a teenager I wrote to R.A. Lafferty. And he responded, too, with letters that were like R.A. Lafferty short stories, filled with elliptical answers to straight questions and simple answers to complicated ones.

You must have a bladder like Lake Erie. I think empires rose and fell in the time it took you to pee. I could hear it the whole time." Thank you. Do you want something?

He had had a severe shock some weeks earlier, when, having narrowly failed to capture a large grey-brown hare for his dinner, it had stopped at the edge of the forest, looked at him with disdain, and said, 'Well, I hope you're proud of yourself, that's all,' and had scampered off into the long grass

I've been inspired by dreams - I've even stolen scenes or images or characters from them.

As sure as water's wet and days are long and a friend will always disappoint you in the end.

I can get away before the storm hits. Away from a world in which opiates have become the religion of the masses.

Nobody will ever hurt her. She’ll just smile her faint vague wonderful smile and walk away.