Her laughter was a shiny thing, like pewter flung high in the air.

Once he had drawn first blood, his war against the property of the state lost all its moral resonance.

(You) don't leave the chicken to watch the feed.

My mother thought of my father as half barbarian and half blunt instrument, and she isolated him from his children.

Writing is the only way I have to explain my own life to myself.

If not for sports, I do not think my father would have ever talked to me.

I don't believe in happy families.