Let me tell you something, my wife died for Tuesdays ago. Cancer of the colon. We were married forty-one years. Now you stop feeling sorry for yourself and lose some of that pork of yours. Pretty girl like you - you don't want to do this yourself.

People waste their happiness - that's what makes me sad. Everyone's so scared to be happy.

Look, don't just stare at the pages," I used to tell my students. "Become the characters. Live inside the book.

Let me tell you something, my wife died for Tuesdays ago. Cancer of the colon. We were married forty-one years. Now you stop feeling sorry for yourself and lose some of that pork of yours. Pretty girl like you - you don't want to do this yourself.

The point is this: that the stream of memory may lead you to the river of understanding. And understanding, in turn, may be a tributary to the river of forgiveness.

So many bad things have happened to them that they can't trust the good things. They have to shove them away before someone can get it back.

Fiction writing is a strange business when you think about it. You sit down and weave a network of lies to explore deeper truths.