If you risked love, it took you wherever you wanted to go. If you repressed it, you ended up unhappy.

All the dead bolts, pulled shades and hidden knives in the world couldn't protect you from the truth.

As my early drawings warned me, where humans go, lions and tidal waves follow.

Eastern Connecticut is very different from Western; we're more liverwurst than pâté, more bowling than polo.

I think I write fiction for the opportunity to get beyond the limits of my own life.

But I think this: that whatever prices I've paid, whatever sorrows I shoulder, well, I have blessings, too. Not just my family now, but the others-the ones who have died...They're with me still. They're here...

I don't know. Maybe we're all chaos theorists. Lovers of pattern and predictability, we're scared shitless of explosive change. But we're fascinated by it, too. Drawn to it. Travelers tap their brakes to ogle the mutilation and mangled metal on the side of the interstate, and the traffic backs up for miles. Hijacked planes crash into skyscrapers, breached levees drown a city, and CNN and the networks rush to the scene so that we can all sit in front of our TVs and feast on the footage. Stare, stunned, at the pandemonium--the devils let loose from their cages.