One of my earliest memories, movie-related or otherwise, is of seeing a man dunking a man's head in a toilet on television, and my mom telling me that this is what would happen to me if I ever joined the Army. It wasn't until my senior year in high school that I would discover that this was a scene from 'The Great Santini,' starring Robert Duvall.

In my darkest moments, I have not eaten an entire pie, but I have turned to other baked goods to find solace.

In the past, I'd been sort of a fan of writing a coat hanger of a script, and something I could hang ideas off of.

David Lynch's 'Fire Walk With Me' has a scene in it that scared me so bad that I don't remember it. I blocked the memory out - repeatedly! I've seen the film two or three times, and I can never remember what it is that scares me.

Novelists go about the strenuous business of marrying and burying their people, or else they send them to sea, or to Africa, or at the least, out of town. Essayists in their stillness ponder love and death.

The death of Abdel Nasser on September 28, 1970, was an irreversible setback for Egypt.

My death will be caused by morphine, which I have deliberately taken with suicidal intent.

The first book I really loved was 'Little Women' - I'd have given anything for Beth to have been allowed to live; I remember crying very much over her death, trying to make the words change just by staring at them. I loved 'Anne of Green Gables,' too; 'What Katy Did;' and 'Peter Pan.'