Before, I wandered as a diversion. Now I wander seriously and sit and read as a diversion.

This Midwestern sky is the nakedest loneliest sky in America. To escape it, people live inside and underground.

A novel is what you call something that won't sell if you call it poems or short stories.

I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?

Free people have a serious problem with place, being in a place, using up a place, deciding which new place to rotate to. Americans ricochet around the United States like billiard balls.

Ooooh," Kate groans, Kate herself now. "I'm so afraid." "I know." "What am I going to do?" "You mean right now?" "Yes." "We'll go to my car. Then we'll drive down to the French Market and get some coffee. Then we'll go home." "Is everything going to be all right?" "Yes." "Tell me. Say it." "Everything is going to be all right.

Maybe there are times when an honest hatred serves us better than love corrupted by sentimentality, meretriciousness, sententiousness, cuteness.