Jackie Martello

“There is no greater fan of fly fishing then the worm.”
― Patrick F. McManus

“Detecting the onset of hypothermia, I built a fire to keep warm. But that is to put it too simply, too casually. No fire ever enjoyed such devoted attention. Cornea transplants are slapdash by comparison. The proceedings opened with a short religious service. Then pieces of tinder were recruited individually, trained, and assigned particular duties. Over the tinder I placed larger pieces, some approaching the size of toothpicks. At last the delicate structure was ready for the match. And another match. And still another match! I melted the snow from the area with a few appropriate remarks, and tried again to light the fire. This time it took. A feeble, wispy little blaze ate a piece of tinder, gagged, and nearly died. I gave it mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. It struggled back to life, sampled one of the toothpicks, found the morsel to its liking, and ate another. The flame leaped into the kindling. Soon the robust blaze devoured even the wet branches I fed to it, first by the handful and then by the armful. A mere bonfire would not do, I wanted an inferno. A person lost in winter knows no excess when it comes to his fire.”
― Patrick F. McManus, The Grasshopper Trap

“Unless Baxter stood still it was impossible to distinguish if he was a dog, a cat, a hamster, or a racquetball. I mean I love dogs, but not dogs that are smaller than cats, that goes against everything God intended. I once saw Baxter get beat up by a rabbit. I’m not kidding you, a little white rabbit beat the piss out of him. He wouldn’t leave the house for a month.”
― Nick Pirog, Unforeseen

“Writers live with fear. Some writers cannot deal with the fear, and so they quit or refuse to publish. In order to write, you must either ignore the fear or trick it into leaving you alone. The fear is very sly, though and hard to trick. The fear in writing comes from exposing your thoughts, your emotions, your experiences, your ideas, your talent, your intelligence and ultimately your self to public scrutiny and possible scorn. The fear is by no means groundless. You have opened yourself up to the possibility of public humiliations...I sometimes wonder if perhaps the greatest novel ever written isn't gathering dust in some filing cabinet somewhere, simply because its author could not overcome the fear of having it published.”
― Patrick Mcmanus