All of life like a series of tableaux, and in the living we missed so much, hid so much, left so much undone and unsaid.

It's an odd kind of feeling because it sort of reminds me of being five again. When you're a five-year-old, you don't pay any attention to what anyone thinks of you. You just sort of are in your skin.

All of life like a series of tableaux, and in the living we missed so much, hid so much, left so much undone and unsaid.

Ideas are like pizza dough, made to be tossed around.

You write to suit some sense in yourself and trust that that will resonate with a certain wider readership.

Uncontrollable consumerism has become a watchword of our culture despite regular and compelling calls for its end. The United States has more malls than high schools; Americans spend more time shopping than reading. ... Some of the most insightful writing about the American character over the nation's history has been about neither freedom nor democracy but about the crazed impulse to acquire things.

My sister is a public school teacher. She makes far far less money than I do, and gets almost no public attention for her work. Yet I believe what she does is infinitely more important and more difficult than what I do.