I have spent so long erecting partitions around the part of me that writes - learning how to close the door on it when ordinary lfe intervenes, how to close the door on ordinary life when it's time to start writing again - that I'm not sure I could fit the two parts of me back together now.

I don't know what takes more courage: surviving a lifelong endurance test because you once made a promise or breaking free, disrupting all your world.

I'm too shy for personal appearances, and I've found out that anytime I talk about my writing, I can't do any writing for many weeks afterward.

Isn't a memorial service meant to comfort the living?

When I read, I'm purely a reader

It seems to me that since I've had children, I've grown richer and deeper. They may have slowed down my writing for a while, but when I did write, I had more of a self to speak from.

Something was wrong with a world where people came and went so easily.