I took two fiction-writing courses in college and majored in literature. I felt that I had a knack though I wouldn't go so far as to call it a talent. But it scared me. I felt it was a childish thing wanting to write and that I would forget about it eventually.

I realized I was never going to have any peace with myself unless I made an honest stab at trying to write.

By the end of the first decade of writing, I considered myself a confirmed failure in the eyes of the world.

If a person wants to be of any use to himself, he better insist on getting his fair share of beauty and pleasure, and if there's something about the system that's keeping him from getting his share, then I think he's well within his rights to fight to change that.

If you could figure out how to live with family then you'd gone a long way toward finding your peace.

There was no such thing as perfection in this world, only moments of such extreme transparency that you forgot yourself, a holy mercy if there ever was one.

You'd think family would be the one sure thing in life, the gimme? Points you got just for being born? So much thick, meaty stuff bound you to these people, so many interlocking spirals of history, genetics, common cause, and struggle that it should be the most basic of all drives, that you would strive to protect and love one another, yet this bond that should be the big no-brainer was in fact the hardest thing.