Dip a slice of bread in batter. That's September: yellow, gold, soft and sticky. Fry the bread. Now you have October: chewier, drier, streaked with browns. The day in question fell somewhere in the middle of the french toast process.

In fiction, when you paint yourself into a corner, you can write a pair of suction cups onto the bottoms of your shoes and walk up the wall and out the skylight and see the sun breaking through the clouds. In nonfiction, you don't have that luxury.

You don't have to be a genius to recognize one. If you did, Einstein would never have gotten invited to the White House.

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.'

Most Americans pay lip service to the idea of freedom, but can't handle real freedom.

The scientist keeps the romantic honest, and the romantic keeps the scientist human.

You know what the game of golf is, don't you? It's basketball for people who can't jump and chess for people who can't think.