“Outside the morning was bright. I liked the holy, rejoicing look of it: the many gray Christmases of my childhood had depressed me. And apparently not just me: one year the holiday card my mother sent out was an October photo of my brother and me, with a caption that read The children. In some dead leaves.”

                     --Lorrie Moore, A Gate at the Stairs, 2009

“SPEAKING IS A PRECIOUS WASTE OF SILENCE. IT IS DIRTY, IMPURE TRANQUILITY. BESIDES, YOU’RE NOT PEOPLE. SO JUST REMEMBER THAT I’M NOT SPEAKING TO YOU. SERENITY, SHATTERED WITH A CHAOS OF SOUND.”

                     --Doug Moench, MARVEL PREVIEW, Vol. 1, No. 12, 
                            "Slinking Through the Psycho-Ward," 1977

(Posted simultaneously to “Jelly-Town!”)