It's not the pain I'm afraid of; I know about the pain. What I'm afraid of is the end of this small, sweet dream.

They had discovered one could grow as hungry for light as for food.

I don't take notes; I don't outline, I don't do anything like that. I just flail away at the goddamn thing. I'm a salami writer. I try to write good salami, but salami is salami. You can't sell it as caviar.

The harder you had to work to open a package, the less you ended up caring about what was inside.

You can see the goldenrod, that most tenacious and pernicious and beauteous of all New England flora, bowing away from the wind like a great and silent congregation.

The sun was a molten coin burning a circle in the low-hanging overcast, surrounded by a fairy-ring of moisture.

Cold start is a hard start.