You don't always talk with your mouth. Sometimes what you say with your mouth hardly matters at all. You have to signify

The first thing was to get down to Addie Richardson's henhouse, and that was a goodish way, four or five miles. She found herself wondering if the Lord was going to send her an eagle to fly her those four miles, or send Elijah in his fiery chariot to give her a lift. Blasphemy," she told herself complacently. "The Lord provides strength, not taxicabs.

We like to think about how smart we are. But I think talent as a writer is hard-wired in, it's all there, at least the basic elements of it. You can't change it any more than you can choose whether to be right handed or left handed.

I think everybody has experiences from time to time they can't explain. They are peculiarities. Usually we just dismiss them because they are uncomfortable to think about.

All I can say is what you already know: some days are treasure. Not many, but I think in almost every life there are a few. That was one of mine, and when I'm blue -- when life comes down on me and everything looks tawdry and cheap, the way Joyland Avenue did on a rainy day -- I go back to it, if only to remind myself that life isn't always a butcher's game. Sometimes the prizes are real. Sometimes they are precious.

Oh Christ, he groaned to himself, if this is the stuff adults have to think about I never want to grow up

A great whispering noise began to rise in the woods on either side of the tracks, as if the forest had just noticed we were there and was commenting on it.