Friends. They Aren’t Any Such Thing As

The Real Importance Of Reading Is That It Creates An Ease & Intimacy With The Process Of Writing... It Also Offers You A Constantly Growing Knowledge Of What Has Been Done And What Hasn't, What Is Trite And What Is Fresh, What Works And What Lies There Dying (or Dead) On The Page. The More You Read, The Less Apt You Are To Make A Fool Of Yourself With Your Pen Or Word Processor.

I Am, When You Stop To Think Of It, A Member Of A Fairly Select Group: The Final Handful Of American Novelists Who Learned To Read And Write Before They Learned To Eat A Daily Helping Of Video Bullshit.

It's A Tough Life If You Don't Weaken.

Art Should Be A Place Of Hope.

I Believe These Stories Exist Because We Sometimes Need To Create Unreal Monsters And Bogies To Stand In For All The Things We Fear In Our Real Lives: The Parent Who Punches Instead Of Kissing, The Auto Accident That Takes A Loved One, The Cancer We One Day Discover Living In Our Own Bodies. If Such Terrible Occurrences Were Acts Of Darkness, They Might Actually Be Easier To Cope With. But Instead Of Being Dark, They Have Their Own Terrible Brilliance. . . And None Shine So Bright As The Acts Of Cruelty We Sometimes Perpetrate In Our Own Families.