You never do things the easy way, do you?" she said. "There's an easy way?" I asked.

But sometimes the best help a person can find is helping someone else.

It wasn't even a good note. 'If you are reading this I am probably dead.' What sort of a note is that?

If I seem to wander, if I seem to stray, remember that true stories seldom take the straightest way

I don't speak fluent bumpkin.

After two years of sending out query letters and failing to get an agent, I made friends with an author, who was nice enough to introduce me to his agent. That got my foot in the door.

You know, I could have carried you.