You've heard of people calling in sick. You may have called in sick a few times yourself. But have you ever thought about calling in well

Hard times and funky living can season the soul, true enough, but joy is the yeast that makes it rise.

If you were Jesus with missing years to kill where would you go?

Now that I'm in love, I haven't a clue. Now that I'm in love, I'm completely stupid on the subject.

When I go to the shore, I take along the poems of Pablo Neruda. I suppose it's because the poems are simultaneously lush and ripe and kind of lazy, yet throbbing with life - like summer itself.

I finish the book so I can see how it's going to end. I write that first sentence, and if it's the right first sentence, it leads to the right second sentence and three years later you have a 500-page manuscript, but it really is like going on a trip, going on a journey. It's a voyage.

At birth, we emerge from dream soup. At death, we sink back into dream soup. In between soups, there is a crossing of dry land. Life is a portage.