That morning she pours Teacher's over my belly and licks it off. That afternoon she tries to jump out the window.

It's strange. You never start out life with the intention of becoming a bankrupt or an alcoholic or a cheat and a thief. Or a liar.

There is no God, and conversation is a dying art.

All of us, all of us, all of us trying to save our immortal souls, some ways seemingly more round about and mysterious than others. We are having a good time here. But hope all will be revealed soon.

I've done as many as 20 or 30 drafts of a story. Never less than 10 or 12 drafts.

Mel thought real love was nothing less than spiritual love. He'd said he'd spent five years in a seminary before quitting to go to medical school. He said he still looked back on those years in the seminary as the most important years of his life.

And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.