Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed.
They say the smart dog obeys but the smarter dog knows when to disobey.
I’m not good at small talk; I’m not good at big talk; and medium talk just doesn’t come up.
Sometimes I can better describe a person by another person’s reaction. In a story in my first book, I couldn’t think of a way to sufficiently describe the charisma of a certain boy, so the narrator says, “I knew girls who saved his gum.”
Just because you have stopped sinking doesn’t mean you’re not still underwater.
The only time the word baby doesn’t scare me is the time that it should, when it is what a man calls me.
Just once in my life – oh, when have I ever wanted anything just once in my life?
Dreams: the place most of us get what we need.
Wear your heart on the page, and people will read to find out how you solved being alive.
I sleep with a glass of water on the nightstand so I can see by its level if the coastal earth is trembling or if the shaking is still me.
I know that homes burn and that you should think what to save before they start to. Not because, in the heat of it, everything looks as valuable as everything else. But, because nothing looks worth the bother, not even your life.
I get rational when I panic.
As soon as I knew that I would be all right, I was sure that I was dead and didn’t know it. I moved through the days like a severed head that finishes a sentence. I waited for the moment that would snap me out of my seeming life.
And I see that not touching for so long was a drive to the beach with the windows rolled up so the waves feel that much colder.
I often feel the effects of people only after they leave me.
I think of the chimp, the one with the talking hands.
I leave a lot out when I tell the truth.
It is possible to imagine a person so entirely that the image resists attempts to dislodge it.
When my mother died, my father’s early widowhood gave him social cachet he would not have had if they had divorced. He was a bigger catch for the sorrow attached.
Look at me. My concerns-are they spiritual, do you think, or carnal? Come on. We’ve read our Shakespeare.