It's hard enough for a person to keep their own socks pulled up, let alone someone else's.

You learn best by reading a lot and writing a lot, and the most valuable lessons of all are the ones you teach yourself.

She is a cat with a burning tail, an ant under a microscope, a fly about to lose its wings to the curious plucking fingers of a third-grader on a rainy day, a game for bored children with no bodies and the whole universe at their feet.

It's funny how close the past is, sometimes. Sometimes it seems as if you could almost reach out and touch it. Only who really wants to?

If the stuff you're writing is not for yourself, it won't work.

If anyone ever asks you what panic is, now you can tell them: an emotional blank spot that leaves you feeling as if you've been sucking on a mouthful of pennies.

Teaching school is like having jumper cables hooked to your brain, draining all the juice out of you.