Sometimes a cigar is just a smoke and a story's just a story

Any game looks straight if everyone is being cheated at once.

In the end we always wear out our worries. That’s what Wireman says.

How much courage does it take to fire up your tractor and plow under a crop you spent six or seven years growing? How much courage to go on and do that after you've spent all that time finding out how to prepare the soil and when to plant and how much to water and when to reap? How much to just say, "I have to quit these peas. Peas are no good for me, I better try corn or beans.

Writing fiction, especially a long work of fiction, can be a difficult, lonely job; it's like crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a bathtub. There's plenty of opportunity for self-doubt.

I saw something even more beautiful than a sense of humor: an appreciation for life’s essential absurdity.

If you don't control your temper, your temper will control you.