But it was a dreadful kind of curiosity, the kind that makes you peek through your fingers during the scariest parts of a scary movie.
If you want to write, you write. The only way to learn to write is by writing.
The way those old memories kept bubbling to the surface in the present tense was disturbing. It was as if the past had never died; as if on some level of time’s great tower, everything was still happening.
He used to say what you deserve has nothing to do with where you finish.
He wanted what evil men always want: to have power and use that power to make mischief.
I always wondered about growing up. I bet it’s mostly lies.
But of course it had hurt. It had hurt before, in the worst, rupturing way, knowing there would be no more you but the universe would roll on just the same, unharmed and unhampered.
Loss changes you. Sometimes that’s bad. Sometimes it’s good. Either way, you eat your goddam pork chop and go on.
The Black Angel came up from the roots and down from the branches. Her fingers are death and her hair is full of cobwebs and dream is her kingdom.
Oddly, the burned hand didn’t seem to hurt much anymore; it was only numb. It would have been better if there had been pain. Pain was at least real.
Save your hate for those who deserve it more.
There’s nothing I like better than a good book discussion with someone who can hold up his end of the argument.
In the end it was Tabby who cast the deciding vote, as she so often has at crucial moments in my life. I’d like to think I’ve done the same for her from time to time, because it seems to me that one of the things marriage is about is casting the tiebreaking vote when you just can’t decide what you should do next.
Stories are found things, like fossils in the ground... Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered, pre-existing world.
Having a breakdown was like breaking a vase and then gluing it back together. You could never trust yourself to handle that vase again with any surety. You couldn’t put a flower in it because flowers need water and water might dissolve the glue. Am I crazy, then?
Maybe this isn’t home, nor ever was- maybe home is where I have to go tonight. Home is the place where when you go there, you have to finally face the thing in the dark.
He thought one of the universal truths of life was that, sooner or later, someone always paid.
What must it be like for a suicide coming down from a high ledge? I’m sure it must be a very sane feeling. That’s probably why they scream all the way down.
Don’t complicate what’s simple.
What you love, you must love all the harder because someday it will be gone.