Thank God Roxane Coss had not fallen in love with one of the Russians. She doubted they could make it up the stairs without stopping for a cigarette and telling at least one loud story that no one could understand.

I was starting to wonder if I was ready to be a writer, not someone who won prizes, got published and was given the time and space to work, but someone who wrote as a course of life. Maybe writing wouldn't have any rewards. Maybe the salvation I would gain through work would only be emotional and intellectual. Wouldn't that be enough, to be a waitress who found an hour or two hidden in every day to write?

I used to do everything to keep a wall up around myself and keep my life quiet so that I could write.

I could teach. I could wait tables. I could cook in a restaurant. Food and teaching were the two skills I had.

It makes you wonder. All the brilliant things we might have done with our lives if only we suspected we knew how.

I made a startling discovery. Time spent writing = output of work. Amazing.

I don't write for an audience, I don't think whether my book will sell, I don't sell it before I finish writing it.