I did what most writers do at their beginnings: emulated my elders, imitated my peers, thus turning away from any possibility of discovering truths beneath my skin and behind my eye.

Recreate the world in your own image and make it better for your having been here.

It was in their friendship they just wanted to run forever, shadow and shadow.

So it was the hand that started it all . . . His hands had been infected, and soon it would be his arms . . . His hands were ravenous.

The merry-go-round was running, yes, but... It was running backward. The small calliope inside the carousel machinery rattle-snapped its nervous-stallion shivering drums, clashed its harvest-moon cymbals, toothed its castanets, and throatily choked and sobbed its reeds, whistles, and baroque flutes.

And they were all, when their souls grew warm, poets.

I’m the thing you most desire, you represent the thing I least desire, death. It’s just the opposite of love.