I hung a picture of him above my bed and learned by hand the internal workings of the female combustion engine.

— Shannon Celebi

I long for some connection, to the real and those who love them, and hope that my fiction can reach beyond the veil, that I might touch someone and make them feel something…or something.

— Shannon Celebi

I’m sorry if... I get too personal, if I make you uncomfortable, but writing is like one of the seven deadly sins, like Sharing on Mr. Rogers, and once you get the bug you’re trapped in The Neighborhood of Make-Believe forever.

— Shannon Celebi

Instead, I opened my eyes to find the thing in front of my face, wafting dead horse breath across my chin and up my nose, its mouth like a gaping maw; its eyes, two giant wormholes, twisting and bending with some apparitional substance that could have been space and time if I’d known anything about physics.

— Shannon Celebi

I think first of the children. What the hell am I supposed to tell them? Then I think about money, the house, all those things no widow will tell you ever crossed her mind.

— Shannon Celebi

It’s not like I planned it. I never woke up from some rosy dream and said, “Okay, world, today I’m gonna span.

— Shannon Celebi

It wasn’t as if she’d thought it through or anything, how what a person wanted wasn’t always what they needed, and what a person needed might be the last thing they could ever want.

— Shannon Celebi

Jeb'd said it was harder for a pretty girl to find work; even white men liked flowers, whether red or pink or blue.

— Shannon Celebi

Just five minutes, God, I chant like some hostage negotiator on the brink of a resolution. Five minutes alone. Please, please. Please.

— Shannon Celebi

Just write. That's my only tip. And read. I guess that's two.

— Shannon Celebi