“all stories are like those about the creation of the universe, no one was there, no one witnessed anything, yet everyone knows what happened.”

“Everyone thinks they know so goddamned much about everything and no one knows fuck all about anything.”

“Cars are all jammed up all along the road and a light turns red and someone honks. In every one of those cars there is a story or a hundred stories. For every light on in al of those huge city buildings there is a story. No one knows what I am about to face and no one knows my story and neither do I right then.”

“But no one knows anything about you, and Washington keeps telling everyone you are what you say you are. That's impossible. No one here is what they say they are.”

“Who are we if not the stories we pass down? What happens when there's no one left to tell those stories? To hear them? Who will ever know that I existed?”

“Readers find most flashbacksintolerable. Yet a lot of neophyte writers flash back like mad.Why? No one but the Creator of the Universe knows for sure,but there is a likely answer: they find the conflicts in the "now"of the story produce anxiety in themselves.”