For the last four years of her life, Mother was in a nursing home called Chateins in St. Louis ... [S]ix months before she died I sent a Mother's Day card. There was a horrible, mushy poem in it. I remember feeling "vaguely guilty.

“Cheat your landlord if you can -- and must -- but do not try to shortchange the…”

“Shoot the bitch and write a book. That's what I did.”

“Death needs time for what it kills to grow in.”

“we are all alone, born alone, die alone, and — in spite of true romance magazin…”