The person we know at first, she thinks, is not the one we know at last.

The job of the writer is to look at where he is now and make some sort of emotional sense of it, not only for that moment but for years to come.

I want the younger writer to know that she or he is meaningful, that what they have to say is powerful in this world. But they can't come indoors, they can't close the curtains, they can't, like, lock themselves away from the world and say nothing.

That's what sons do: write to their mothers about recall, tell themselves about the past until they come to realize that they are the past.

Pain is not wat you get, it is wat you give.

She likes the people with the endurance to tolerate the drudge, the ones who know that pain is a requirement, not a curse.

There is always room for at least two truths.