Maybe It's Because I Grew Up During

You Can't Count On Notoriety Lasting Very Long, And There's No Way To Predict Whether Anyone Will Care About Your Books Or You In Three Years, Let Alone Ten Or Twenty.

What If You Believed That Everything In Life Was Like A Prize? What If You Thought Of The World As A Big Random Drawing, And You Were Always Winning Things, The World Offering Them Up With A Big Grin, Like An Emcee's: Here You Go, Hollis. Here Is A Motorcycle. Here Is A Little Boy Who Loves You. Here Is A Weird Experience, Here Is Something Bad That You Should Mull Over Because It Will Make You A Better Person. What If You Could Think That Life Was This Free Vacation You'd Won, And You Won Just Because You Happened To Be Alive?

Maybe Love, Like Suffering, Is Relative.

There Are All Kinds Of Strange Threads In American Culture, And Places Where Sympathy Is Extended And Places Where It Isn't, And Places Where Outrage Is Extended And Places Where It's Not. It's This Constantly Shifting Barrel Of Eels.

How Can You Come To Understand Your Life When Even The Beginning Is So Complicated: A Single Cell Imprinted With The Color Of Your Eyes And The Shape Of Your Face The Pattern On Your Palm And The Moods That Will Shadow You Through Your Life. How Can You Be Alive When Every Choice You Make Breaks The World Into A Thousand Filaments Each Careless Step Branching Into Long Tributaries Of Alternate Lives Shuddering Outward And Outward Like Sheet Lightning.