In real life, it takes only one to make a quarrel.
Sometimes death is proof of life. Sometimes decay points out a certain verve.
With a little persuasion, any familiar thing can turn abnormal in the mind. Here's a thought experiment. Consider this brutal bit of magic. A human grows a second human in a space inside her belly; she grows a second heart and a second brain, second eyes and second limbs, a complete set of second body parts as if for use as spares, and then, after almost a year, she expels that second screaming being out of her belly and into the world, alive. Bizarre, isn't it?
Sentences or solutions occur to me in the shower, or while running on the treadmill, or riding on the subway.
It took me years to learn that sentences in fiction must do much more than stand around and look pretty.
My goal was just to tell the unlikely story in a way that would feel as convincing as possible.
In general, I think I'm quick to worry about disasters of all kinds.
All biblical exegetes and theologians have a theory of language, whether they acknowledge it or not.
I've flown out of character so many times. In that sense I've been lucky, because I've been given the liberty to do just about anything I've wanted to do in my lifetime.
Confession is a kind of pride.
I haven't, in the 23 years that I have been in the uniformed services of the United States of America, ever violated an order - not one.