Stories are artifacts, not really made things which we create and can take credit for, but pre-existing objects which we dig up.

...they came to see what happened to their town, to see if it was indeed lying burnt and bleeding. Many of them also came to die.

Say what you mean. Say what you see. Make a photograph, if you can, for the reader.

The wonder is that so many OCDs manage to live productive lives, just the same. They work, they eat (often not enough or too much, it's true), they go to the movies, they make love to their girlfriends and boyfriends, their wives and husbands... and all the time those birds are there, clinging to them and pecking away little bits of flesh.

A good reputation is something that must be earned, yet can never be bought.

I think we'd all like to believe that after we shuffle off this mortal coil, that there's going to be something on the other side because for most of us, I know for me, life is so rich, so colorful and sensual and full of good things, things to read, things to eat, things to watch, places to go, new experiences, that I don't want to think that you just go to darkness.

How life did imitate art sometimes. And the cruder the art, the closer the imitation.