For a man to know what he has when he had it, that is what makes him a fortunate man.

There was no one clear point of loss. It happened over and over again in a thousand small ways and the only truth there was to learn was that there was no getting used to it.

Everyone knows everything eventually.

You can't be a good person when you're writing and a bad person to your husband or a bad friend. You can't be a jerk in order to be a good writer. You can't say, "I'm too busy writing to be political." You are one person. You are the same person in every aspect of your life, and you have to be a responsible person in every aspect of your life.

Coming back is the thing that enables you to see how all the dots in your life are connected, how one decision leads you another, how one twist of fate, good or bad, brings you to a door that later takes you to another door, which aided by several detours--long hallways and unforeseen stairwells--eventually puts you in the place you are now.

You can't be a jerk in order to be a good writer.

You can't be a good person when you're writing and a bad person to your husband or a bad friend.