“A woman wears many hats in one lifetime -- why shouldn't one of them be a crown?”

“Sisters, girlfriends and troublemakers -- you know who you are -- you are fearfully and wonderfully made! In other words, God doesn't make junk. Thankfully, his children do, and that's why we have been blessed with flea markets just about everywhere.”

“On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return. ”

“What do you think it is to be normal?'Why in the world would you want to be?' she says.I don't know. I guess that's the problem.'I don't think normal is that great.'But so many people choose it,' I reply.I don't think that's it at all. I think most everyone is normal and some of us, for whatever reason, choose to reject that and wear ruby red slippers or old black hats.'Well, why do we choose the hard road?”

“It should surprise no one that the life of the writer--such as it is--is colorless to the point of sensory deprivation. Many writers do little else but sit in small rooms recalling the real world. This explains why so many books describe the author's childhood. A writer's childhood may well have been the occasion of his only firsthand experience. Writers read literary biography, and surround themselves with other writers, deliberately to enforce in themselves the ludicrous notion that a reasonable option for occupying yourself on the planet until your life span plays itself out is sitting in a small room for the duration, in the company of pieces of paper. ”

“Once there was a moose, a very poor, thin, lonely moose who lived on a rocky hill where only bitter leaves grew and bushes with spiky branches. One day a red motor car drove past. In the backseat wasa grey gypsy dog wearing a gold earring.”

“Why sit and stare at a box beaming messages indoctrinating us into consumer culture for hours a day when there are so many more enjoyable alternatives available?”