Every minute we were together, I felt like I was wandering in the dark through a strange house, groping for a light switch. And then, whenever I found one and turned it on, the bulb was dead.

I really wanted to be a musician, but it turned out I had no sense of time.

I no longer believe that just about everything is funny, if viewed from the proper angle.

Safe from the Neighbors is a novel of unusual richness and depth, one that's as wise about the small shocks within a marriage as it is about the troubled history of Mississippi. Steve Yarbrough is a formidably talented novelist, shuttling between the past and present with a grace that feels effortless.

I used to describe myself as a comic novelist, but my concerns seem to have darkened over the past few years.

Once you'd broken through that invisible barrier that separates one person from another, you were connected forever, whether you liked it or not.

Apparently even the most awful tragedies, and the people they'd ruined, got a little stale after a while.