Sometimes I think that if I had to choose between an ear of corn or making love to a woman, I'd choose the corn. Not that I wouldn't love to have a final roll in the hay - I am a man yet, and something never die - but the thought of those sweet kernels bursting between my teeth sure sets my mouth to watering. It's fantasy, I know that. Neither will happen. I just like to weight the options, as though I were standing in front of Solomon: a final roll in the hay or an ear of corn. What a wonderful dilemma. Sometimes I substitute an apple for the corn.

Is where you're from the place you're leaving or where you have roots?

You work hard on a book and throw it out there and then it's beyond your control.

Hey! Shouts Camel. There ain't no woman in the world worth two bottles of whiskey!

It's as though I've been sleepwalking and suddenly woken to find myself here

...poking a lump of red Jello that jiggles outrageously, like a breast I once knew.

Jacob: I've never seen so much manure. Wade: Baggage stock horses. They pack'em in 27 a car. Jacob: how do you stand the smell? Wade: what smell?