It has long been my belief that in times of great stress, such as a 4-day vacation, the thin veneer of family wears off almost at once, and we are revealed in our true personalities.

I would have to find something else to bury here and I wished it could be Charles.

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality.

We moved together very slowly toward the house, trying to understand its ugliness and ruin and shame.

I was pretending that I did not speak their language; on the moon we spoke a soft, liquid tongue, and sang in the starlight, looking down on the dead dried world.

The first book is the book you have to write to get back at your parents; the book you always had in you. Once you get that out of your way, you can start writing books.

We eat the year away. We eat the spring and the summer and the fall. We wait for something to grow and then we eat it.