If it weren't for the unconventionality of my desires, my mind might never have been forced to reckon with my body.

I don't know, maybe it's because I was raised Catholic. Confession has always held a great appeal for me.

My father once nearly came to blows with a female dinner guest about whether a particular patch of embroidery was fuchsia or magenta. But the infinite gradations of color in a fine sunset - from salmon to canary to midnight blue - left him wordless.

She has given me a way out.

Although I am good at enumerating my father’s flaws, it’s hard for me to sustain much anger at him. I expect this is partly because he’s dead, and partly because the bar is lower for fathers than it is for mothers.

I still found literary criticism to be a suspect activity

It's a hard thing to age a character because you can't really suddenly give someone gray hair.