When you're five and you hurt, you make a big noise in the world. At ten you whimper. But by the time you make fifteen you begin to eat the poisoned apples that grow on your own inner tree of pain.

Do any men grow up or do they only come of age?

If you want to play, you gotta pay.

God wiped snot out of his nose and that was you.

Relief loosens tongues beyond measure.

Explanations are such cheap poetry.

...for the first time in my life, writing was hard. The problem was the teaching...by most Friday afternoons I felt as if I'd spent the week with jumper cables clamped to my brain.