Still, There Are Times I Am Bewildered

I've Seen Novels That Have Grown Out Of One Story In A Collection. But It Hasn't Occurred To Me To Take Any Of Those Stories And Build On Them. They Seem Very Finished For Me, So I Don't Feel Like Going Back And Dredging Them Up.

The First Sentence Of A Book Is A Handshake, Perhaps An Embrace. Style And Personality Are Irrelevant. They Can Be Formal Or Casual. They Can Be Tall Or Short Or Fat Or Thin. They Can Obey The Rules Or Break Them. But They Need To Contain A Charge. A Live Current, Which Shocks And Illuminates.

And Wasn't It Terrible, How Much He Looked Forward To Those Moments, So Much So That Sometimes Even A Ride By Himself On The Subway Was The Best Part Of The Day? Wasn't It Terrible That After All The Work One Put Into Finding A Person To Spend One's Life With, After Making A Family With That Person, Even In Spite Of Missing That Person...that Solitude Was What One Relished The Most, The Only Thing That, Even In Fleeting, Diminished Doses, Kept One Sane?

I Wanted To Pull Away From The Things That Marked My Parents As Being Different.

She Has The Gift Of Accepting Her Life.