Tell the truth as you understand it. If you're a writer, you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act - truth is always subversive.

I loved every second of Catholic church. I loved the sickly sweet rotting-pomegranate smells of the incense. I loved the overwrought altar, the birdbath of holy water, the votive candles; I loved that there was a poor box, the stations of the cross rendered in stained glass on the windows.

My mother's eyes were large and brown, like my son's, but unlike Sam's, they were always frantic, like a hummingbird who can't quite find the flower but keeps jabbing around.

If the present is really all we have, then the present lasts forever.

When I was young, I used to be so jealous of other girls that it crippled me.

Two things put me in the spirit to give. One is that I have come to think of everyone with whom I come into contast as a patient in the emergency room. I see a lot of gaping wounds and dazed expressions. Or, as Marianne Moore put it, "The world's an orphan's home." And this feels more true than almost anything else I know. But so many of us can be soothed by writing: think of how many times you have opened a book, read one line, and said, "Yes!" And I want to give people that feeling, too, of connection, communication.

I naturally prefer the company of people who hold grudges, as long as they are not held against me.