Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out. Once you know what the story is and get it right — as right as you can, anyway — it belongs to anyone who wants to read it. Or criticize it.

Did-a-chick? Dum-a-chum? Dad-a-cham? Ded-a-chek?

Love isn't soft, like the poets say. Love has teeth which bite and the wounds never close.

Hairstyles change, and skirt lengths, and slang, but high school administrations? Never.

He could feel the pores of his body open like a million mouths and slurp the water in like a sponge.

How does it happen that a writer who's not even very good - and I can say that, I've read four or five of his books - gets to be in charge of the world's destiny? Or of the entire universe's?" If he's not very good, why didn't you stop at one?" Mrs. Tassenbaum smiled. "Touché. He is readable, I'll give him that - tells a good story.

Everyone loves something for nothing...even if it costs everything.