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.

Everyone needs a hobby, he said. And everyone needs a miracle or two, just to prove life is more than just one long trudge from the cradle to the grave.

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.

I start work around 8 a.m. and usually finish around noon. If there's more to do, I do it in the late afternoon, although that isn't prime time for me.

There were times . . . when it occurred to me that I was repeating my mother's life. Usually this thought struck me as funny. But if I happened to be tired, or if there were extra bills to pay and no money to pay them with, it seemed awful. I'd think 'This isn't the way our lives are supposed to be going.' Then I'd think 'Half the world has the same idea.

I guess when you turn off the main road, you have to be prepared to see some funny houses.

They were trying to run, trying to hide. But the rock would not hide them; the dead tree gave no shelter.