Every now and then, I'll run into someone who claims not to like chocolate, and while we live in a country where everyone has the right to eat what they want, I want to say for the record that I don't trust these people, that I think something is wrong with them, and that they're probably - and this must be said - total duds in bed.

All readers come to fiction as willing accomplices to your lies. Such is the basic goodwill contract made the moment we pick up a work of fiction.

There's something incredibly liberating about a holiday that encourages children to take candy from strangers

At the end of night, before you close your eyes, be content with what you've done and be proud of who you are.

Football offers us a sanitized spectacle of combat that has a clear resolution, which we need more and more today given our incoherent overseas "wars."

A good teacher, after all, wields the authority of a parent with none of the psychological baggage. The best of them are semi-mysterious figures whose wisdom seems boundless and whose approval helps us discover who we are.

The single biggest reason I got my stories taken in various literary magazines - and I want to stress this - is because I refused to give up. Period.