Louisiana in September was like an obscene phone call from nature. The air - moist, sultry, secretive, and far from fresh - felt as if it were being exhaled into one's face. Sometimes it even sounded like heavy breathing.

The one thing emphasized in any creative writing course is 'write what you know,' and that automatically drives a wooden stake through the heart of imagination. If they really understood the mysterious process of creating fiction, they would say, 'You can write about anything you can imagine.'

Here's an idea: let's get over ourselves, buy a cherry pie, and go fall in love with life.

Are you aware that rushing toward a goal is a sublimated death wish? It's no coincidence we call them 'deadlines.'

I travel in gardens and bedrooms, basements and attics, around corners, through doorways and windows, along sidewalks, over carpets, down drainpipes, in the sky, with friends, lovers, children and heros; perceived, remembered, imagined, distorted and clarified.

I don't want to give the impression that I hold daily conversations with my household appliances, although my toaster is as old as Drew Barrymore and almost as talented.

Once one pays some attention to something, then you begin to see evidence of it everywhere.