Pain's nothing. Pain's what you give, not what you get.

He said to me once that most of the time people use the word love as just another way to show off they're hungry. The way he said it went something like: Glorify their appetites.

I'm only telling you on the truth," he said. "If you can't stand the truth, don't ask for it.

Personally, I like the social novel. I like writing that gets in and under the hood and looks about - at what's going on. But I don't say to any writer that that's absolutely what they should do.

People think they know the mystery of living in your skin. They don't. There's no one who knows except the person who carts it around her own self.

I know already that I will return to this day whenever I want to. I can bid it alive. Preserve it. There is a still point where the present, the now, winds around itself, and nothing is tangled. The river is not where it begins or ends, but right in the middle point, anchored by what has happened and what is to arrive.

The world spins. We stumble on. It is enough.