It's possible to overlook character flaws of in-laws for the simple reason that you feel neither responsible for them nor genetically implicated.

A short story is something that I think can be intuited and envisioned and held in your mind almost at once.

And there comes a time in your life when you realize that if you don't take the opportunity to be happy, you may never get another chance again.

To expect reason is where the fallacy lies.

I think a lot of what is going on with kids who get pushed too far and attempt either murder or suicide is that they are trying to deal with their own non-existence for the people who are supposed to care most for them.

My dad had this rock hard body and would work 12- to 13-hour days. The guys he worked with were scrap-iron guys. Nobody on that road crew had read a book in 10 years, but there was something about the way they lived I really admired.

Which is why we have spouses and children and parents and colleagues and friends, because someone has to know us better than we know ourselves. We need them to tell us. We need them to say, "I know you, Al. You are not the kind of man who.