Theres a constant struggle going on about how much will be illegal and how much you will be free to take. Can we open the pharmacies? Can we put Valium and Percodan and those sorts of things out on the shelves? I wouldn't take it. I don't know.

Only library books speak with such wordless eloquence of the power good stories hold over us.

Wow. This makes grand central look like a bus stop in Buttfuck Nebraska.

I believe these stories exist because we sometimes need to create unreal monsters and bogies to stand in for all the things we fear in our real lives: the parent who punches instead of kissing, the auto accident that takes a loved one, the cancer we one day discover living in our own bodies. If such terrible occurrences were acts of darkness, they might actually be easier to cope with. But instead of being dark, they have their own terrible brilliance. . . and none shine so bright as the acts of cruelty we sometimes perpetrate in our own families.

And she sees that the moonlight is losing its orange glow. It has become buttery, and will soon turn to silver.

A little talent is a good thing to have if you want to be a writer. But the only real requirement is the ability to remember every scar.

Ninety-eight percent of what goes on in people's heads is none of their smucking business.