But the only rhyme he could summon for 'out' was 'sauerkraut,' which lacked poetic glory. He let it go. The right line would come in time. That was t….

What I find to be very bad advice is the snappy little sentence, 'Write what you know.' It is the most tiresome and stupid advice that could possibly….

Their silence comfortable. Something unfolding. But what? Not love, which wrenched and wounded. Not love, which came only once..

There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe, but nothing could be done about it, and if you can't fix it you've got t….

A spinning coin, still balanced on its rim, may fall in either direction..

If you are looking for smart judging based on merit, skip the Academy Awards next year and pay attention to the Independent Spirit Awards..

It takes a year, nephew... a full turn of the calendar, to get over losing someone..

Anyway, there's something wrong with everybody and it's up to you to know what you can handle..

Wonderful ... I was up all night reading it, laughing and crying out in horror..

He pressed his face into the fabric and breathed in slowly through his mouth and nose, hoping for the faintest smoke and mountain sage and salty swee….

If a piece of knotted string can unleash the wind, and if a drowned man can awaken, then I believe a broken man can heal..

Everybody that went away suffered a broken heart. "I'm coming back some day," they all wrote. But never did. The old life was too small to fit anymor….

I find it satisfying and intellectually stimulating to work with the intensity, brevity, balance and word play of the short story..

Develop craftsmanship through years of wide reading..

Ordinary parties, he thought, were subtle games of sexual and social badminton..

What we fear we often rage against..

For if Jack Buggit could escape from the pickle jar, if a bird with a broken neck could fly away, what else might be possible? Water may be older tha….

It's easier to die if others around you are dying..

Was love then like a bag of assorted sweets passed around from which one might choose more than once? Some might sting the tongue, some invoke night ….

...all them things I don't know could get you killed if I come to know them.

No wonder, he thought, that the panhandle people were a godly lot, for they lived in sudden, violent atmospheres. Weather kept them humble..