One Thing's Sure And Nothing Surer. The

But Nothing Is Solid And Permanent. Our Lives Are Raised On The Shakiest Foundations. You Don't Need To Read History Books To Know That. You Only Have To Know The History Of Your Own Life.

The Woman Doesn't Look Up. It's As If She's Deaf. Maybe She Is. Maybe She's Like The Cambodian Women I've Read About, The Ones Who Witnessed So Many Atrocities That They Have Willed Themselves Blind. Maybe That's What You Have To Do Sometimes To Survive. You Kill Off Part Of Yourself, Your Hearing Or Eyesight, Your Capacity For Hope.

It Struck Her How Eating Was A Comfort During A Hard Time Because It Reminded You That There Had Been Other Days, Good Days, When You’d Eaten The Same Thing. Reminded You There Were Good Days In Life, When Precious Little Else Did. (268)

I Love Learning About Different Dialects And I Own All Sorts Of Regional And Time-period Slang Dictionaries. I Often Browse Through Relevant Ones While Writing A Story. I Also Read A Lot Of Diaries And Oral Histories.

I Usually Do At Least A Dozen Drafts And Progressively Make More-conscious Decisions. Because I've Always Believed Stories Are Closer To Poems Than Novels, I Spend A Lot Of Time On The Story's Larger Rhythms, Such As Sentence And Paragraph Length, Placement Of Flashbacks And Dialogue.