You can go through your whole life telling yourself that life is logical, life is prosaic, life is sane. Above all sane. And I think it is. I've had a lot of time to think about that. And what I keep coming back to is [her] dying declaration: 'So you understand that when we increase the number of variables, the axioms themselves never change.'

Just the act of cooking made her feel better, because cooking was life.

I'm seen as somebody who writes for adults because I'm an older man myself. Some of them find me, and a lot of them don't.

You learned to accept, or you ended up in a small room writing letters home with Crayolas.

Later, going home, I realized they didn't look alike at all; what made them seem to was the aftermath of stress and the lingering of sorrow. It's strange how pain marks our faces, and makes us look like family.

You might question a winkle - a feeling that came to you right out of the blue - but you didn’t question knowing.

I like to write short stories more because I never met a writer who wasn't lazy. And a short story is, by its very definition, short. It is something that generally you can turn out in a week to two weeks depending on how well it goes for you. But, at the same time, it gives the same satisfaction of creating a complete world.