…the death of my mother was the thing that made me believe the most deeply in my safety: nothing bad could happen to me, I thought. The worst thing already had.

Obviously memoir is subjective truth: It is my memory, my perspective, that's the beauty. But I still wanted to be as factual as I could.

Art isn't anecdote. It's the consciousness we bring to bear in our lives.

Believe in the integrity and value of the jagged path. We don't always do the right thing on our way to rightness.

In my perception, the world wasn't a graph or formula or an equation. It was a story.

I really came to literature through poetry.

So on one hand, because the wilderness was familiar to me, it really helped me be brave. But it still was scary sometimes. I had to say to myself: "Chances are, you're not going to be mauled by a bear."