“That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones.”

“Evan Connell said once that he knew he was finished with a short story when he found himself going through it and taking out commas and then going through the story again and putting the commas back in the same places. I like that way of working on something. I respect that kind of care for what is being done. That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones, with the punctuation in the right places so that they an best say what they are meant to say. If the words are heavy with the writer's own unbridled emotions, or if they are imprecise and inaccurate for some other reason -- if the worlds are in any way blurred -- the reader's eyes will slide right over them and nothing will be achieved. Henry James called this sort of hapless writing 'weak specification'.”

“That's right,' Mel said. 'Some vassal would come along and spear the bastard in the name of love. Or whatever the fuck it was they fought over in those days.'Same things we fight over these days,' Terri said.Laura said, 'Nothing's changed.”

“V.S. Pritchett's definition of a short story is 'something glimpsed from the corner of the eye, in passing.' Notice the 'glimpse' part of this. First the glimpse. Then the glimpse gives life, turned into something that illuminates the moment and may, if we're lucky -- that word again -- have even further ranging consequences and meaning. The short story writer's task is to invest the glimpse with all that is in his power. He'll bring his intelligence and literary skill to bear (his talent), his sense of proportion and sense of the fitness of things: of how things out there really are and how he sees those things -- like no one else sees them. And this is done through the use of clear and specific language, language used so as to bring to life the details that will light up the story for the reader. For the details to be concrete and convey meaning, the language must be accurate and precisely given. The words can be so precise they may even sound flat, but they can still carry; if used right they can hit all the notes.”

“All of us, all of us, all of us trying to save our immortal souls, some ways seemingly more round about and mysterious than others. We are having a good time here. But hope all will be revealed soon.”

“What's that sound?" Fran said. Then something as big as a vulture flapped heavily down from one of the trees and landed just in front of the car.It shook itself.It turned its long neck toward the car, raised its head, and regarded us. "Goddamn it," I said.I sat there with my hands on the wheel and stared at the thing. "Can you believe it?" Fran said."I never saw a real one before." We both knew it was a peacock, sure,but we didn't say the word out loud.We just watched it.The bird turned its head up in the air and made this harsh cry again.It had fluffed itself out and looked about twice the size it'd been when it landed. "Goddamn," I said again. We stayed where we were in the front seat. The bird moved forward a little.Then it turned its head to the side and braced itself.It kept its bright, wild eye right on us.Its tail was raised, and it was like a big fan folding in and out.There was every color in the rainbow shining from that tail."My God," Fran said quietly.She moved her hand over to my knee. "Goddamn," I said. There was nothing else to say. The bird made this strange wailing sound once more. "May- awe, may-awe!" it went.If it'd been something I was hearing late at night and for the first time, I'd have thought it was somebody dying, or else something wild and dangerous.”

“We knew our days were numbered. We had fouled up our lives and we were getting ready for a shake-up.”