I still believe in love. I always will. It's my blessing and my burden.

The best anti-depressant pill for me would be one the size of a house so you could drop it on me and put me out of my misery.

Quiet cunning bested boastful brawn

When Loughner himself speaks and we find out his real influences are Spiderman, 'Gnome Chomsky,' Taylor Swift, and Dr. Bronner, then what?

There are moments when it frightens us, threatening to expose us as inauthentic. Well, the big-time impostors we read about in literature run this risk constantly, flirting with destruction, not just humiliation or embarrassment. It's a spectacle that we can't help but find compelling, and it involves a certain level of courage that we sneakily admire, perhaps.

It looked like just the sort of family Americans dream of having: dumb and loving.

Short stories are fiction's R & D department, and failed or less-than-conclusive experiments are not just to be expected but to be hoped for.