Here was the world-famous novelist with her penchant for detail; yet, in her observations of a prostitute with a customer, she had failed to come away with the most important detail of all. She could...
Dear God! the cook cried. Soon all the wood on Twisted River will be pulpwood—for paper! What about toboggans is worse than paper? Books are made from paper! Ketchum declared. What role do toboggans p...
I'm not writing non-fiction. I don't feel anything about me as a kid was unique. Except that I had more interest in being alone and using my imagination.
It's not very interesting to establish sympathy for people who, on the surface, are instantly sympathetic. I guess I'm always attracted to people who, if their lives were headlines in a newspaper, you...
…there is no nakedness that compares to being naked in front of someone for the first time.
¡Hijo de la chingada!
But you live your life at the time you live it—you don’t have much of an overview when what’s happening to you is still happening.
Things often are as they appear. First impressions matter.
Many things the gods achieve beyond our judgement,' said the sorrowful girl. 'What we thought is not confirmed and what we thought not God contives.
MAYBE YOU SHOULD BE AN ENGLISH MAJOR. AT LEAST, YOU GET TO READ STUFF THAT'S WRITTEN BY PEOPLE WHO CAN WRITE! YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING TO BE AN ENGLISH MAJOR, YOU DON'T NEED ANY SPECIAL TALENT, Y...
Jenny decided that all manifestations of her innocence were futile and appeared defensive.
Did anyone who was in love and was unsatisfied with how he was loved in return ever feel saved?
…there was no more safety to be found in love than there was to be found in a virus.
Foreshadowing is the storytelling companion of fate.
What she might have told him was that taxidermy, like sex, is a very personal subject; the manner in which we impose it on others should be discreet.
What is hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the people who once mattered the most to us wind up in parentheses.
We’ll be back, with more ashes for you! el jefe had shouted. You
Well, you finally got me, Helen had whispered to him, tearfully, but Garp had sprawled there, on his back on the wrestling mat, wondering who had gotten whom.
There weren’t so many transvestite prostitutes in Oaxaca in those days; Flor really stood out, and not only because she was tall. She was almost beautiful; what was beautiful about her truly wasn’t af...
The only reason for something to happen in a novel is that it’s the perfect thing to have happen at that time.