Dead men are heavier than broken hearts.

You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that, oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell. Me, I was part of the nastiness now. Far more a part of it than Rusty Regan was.

His voice was the elaborately casual voice of the tough guy in pictures. Pictures have made them all like that.

I had a funny feeling as I saw the house disappear, as though I had written a poem and it was very good and I had lost it and would never remember it again.

It was a cool day and very clear. You could see a long way-but not as far as Velma had gone.

He was a guy who talked with commas, like a heavy novel. Over the phone anyway.

The coffee shop smell was strong enough to build a garage on.

It probably started in poetry; almost everything does.

I wasn’t doing any work that day, just catching up on my foot-dangling.