My quilting is dookie. All needlepoint-related things I should do better on, being honest.

Charles Bock

Categorized in : Being Things Better Honest

In English, I never did the reading when it was assigned. If a paper was due on Friday, my attitude was, read half the book on Tuesday, the second half on Wednesday, and write the paper Thursday night. Sometimes, I'd just read the Cliff's Notes and skip the book altogether.

reading attitude sometimes night

I had a string of really awful jobs in Manhattan where my whole point was to do as little work in the world as possible so I could hoard time to write.

possible work time world

A woman at a bookstore in Brattleboro, Vt., put Castle Freeman Jr.'s novel 'Go With Me' in my hand, and I took it to be nice. 'Yeah I'll probably read five pages,' I thought. But once I started, I could not put it down.

woman down thought me

Let's just say I'm a believer in universal, single-payer healthcare insurance.

insurance say just healthcare

It's understandable why someone might not want to take on a book they think is emotionally hard.

someone think want book

Las Vegas is a great place to be from, not to live in.

live place great vegas

I always thought of Caesars as the gold standard. I had exactly one date in high school, and my father knew someone who got us comped here for the Sammy Davis Jr. show. We heard 'Candy Man,' 'Mr. Bojangles' - the whole list. And then my date and I went off to the dance - homecoming, I think - where she pretty much ignored me.

me man dance father

I never ran away, but I was very unhappy as a teenager. I felt like a complete nonentity, and I very tangibly have memories of not wanting to be here - in my body.

never body unhappy memories

The literary world is filled with good and generous people. But then that's what writing is all about - empathy.

good empathy people world

I was always small and thin. I wasn't the kid who got invited to parties.

small who kid always

One older brother of mine collects comics, and when I was younger, I collected them, too.

them older mine brother

It wasn't a leap for me to go from not wanting to be in my body as a teenager, not wanting to be in my house, to thinking, 'What would happen if I had disappeared?' And then going from writing scenes of angry kids to thinking a little more about the parents and what their lives would be like.

parents me angry thinking

It's been wonderful to hear so many excited and intelligent responses to 'Beautiful Children,' not only from reviewers but also from the people coming out to my readings.

intelligent beautiful children people

Every author dreams of the kind of attention that 'Beautiful Children' has received in the press. Obviously, it's a shock whenever it happens. So yeah, I'm as surprised as everybody else.

dreams attention beautiful children

To me, fiction is the single best way there is - to me, it's the most profound way - of dealing with questions that have no answers.

best me single way

I remember, even in college, reading Cliffs Notes about a book and thinking to myself, 'Geez, that sounds like a good book. I should probably read it.'

good myself remember thinking

What I try to do is write about forgotten people, and, in a certain sense, we're all forgotten.

write try forgotten people

I've always been less interested in the person on the top of the Bellagio than I am at the person whose house got moved to create the Bellagio.

person i-am always house

Writing books takes a long time, and one thing a writer must do is learn to live with his or her project.

live long-time time long

Too often in this world, the things you root for - whether sports teams or spouses to recover from horrible diseases - don't quite pan out.

things you sports world