I Could Claim Any Number Of High-flown

I Started Writing By Doing Small Related Things But Not The Thing Itself, Circling It And Getting Closer. I Had No Idea How To Write Fiction. So I Did Journalism Because There Were Rules I Could Learn. You Can Teach Someone To Write A News Story. They Might Not Write A Great One, But You Can Teach That Pretty Easily.

Journalism Taught Me How To Write A Sentence That Would Make Someone Want To Read The Next One. You Are Trained To Get Rid Of Anything Nonessential. You Go In, You Start Writing Your Article, Assuming A Person's Going To Stop Reading The Minute You Give Them A Reason. So The Trick Is: Don't Give Them One.

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 Think Of The Chimp, The One With The Talking Hands.

Just Once In My Life--oh, When Have I Ever Wanted Anything Just Once In My Life?