Qué pena que cuando los gobiernos deciden entrar en una guerra no puedan coger a sus ejércitos y ponerlos en un recinto cerrado a luchar, algo así como un estadio de fútbol, y no tener que joder a personas inocentes

Each time a new disaster puts miners in the news, the press tries to make them into heroes, but they don't quite fit the bill. They don't march off to war or rush into burning buildings or rid our streets of crime.

She hated her job the same way I hated my jobs because she knew she was worth more, but she also hated herself so there wasn't much point in trying to do better.

Why would she want to come back here and live?' I wondered. 'Doesn't seem like she'd want to.'
'Why do you say that?'
'She seems different, that's all.'
'I don't know,' Bud said. 'You might be confusing different with dissatisfied.

I'm a novelist - not an expert on coal mining. I'm not a politician with an agenda to push. I'm not a reporter presenting facts, and I'm not a sociologist documenting the last struggling remnants of blue-collar America. I'm simply an author who sets her books in coal country because it's where I come from, and it's what I know.

I don't try to sugarcoat things, but I also think my books make positive statements about the people and values in small-town America.