Until we see each other again, keep your head together, read some good books, be useful, be happy.

It's funny how close the past is, sometimes. Sometimes it seems as if you could almost reach out and touch it. Only who really wants to?

It was really amazing the number of hard hits from which a mind could recover.

The town has a sense, not of history, but of time, and the telephone poles seem to know this. If you lay your hand against one, you can feel the vibration from the wires deep within the wood, as if souls had been imprisoned in there and were struggling to get out.

I never saw any of my dad's stories. My mother said he had piles and piles of manuscripts.

With six weeks' worth of recuperation time, you'll also be able to see any glaring holes in the plot or character development. And listen--if you spot a few of these big holes, you are forbidden to feel depressed about them or to beat up on yourself. Screw-ups happen to the best of us.

Men! She could not understand why so many women feared them. Hadn't the gods made them with the most vurnerable part of their guts hanging right out of their bodies, like a misplaced bit of bowel? Kick them there and they curled up like snails. Caress them there and their brains melted.